


Tears of an Angel

by JadeyKins



Series: Devil's Backbone [3]
Category: Constantine (TV), Supernatural
Genre: Asylum, Blood, Bugs, M/M, Mark of Cain, Mental Illness, Ravenscar, Violence, established Castiel/John Constantine/Jack Harkness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-18
Updated: 2015-01-29
Packaged: 2018-02-26 04:41:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 26,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2638469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JadeyKins/pseuds/JadeyKins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John hasn't been sleeping well enough, so when Zed suggests he take an African Dream Root to gain control over his dreamscape, John figures it's worth a shot. He dives in to figure out what's going on inside his own head, but faces unfamiliar nightmares. Can he survive long enough to discover the truth behind this horror or has John finally pressed his luck too far?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Sod off,” John Constantine groaned. 

Zed knocked his legs out of her way and plopped onto the leather couch beside him. Her dark eyes searched his face over and over, even though John refused to look at her directly. She turned on the couch, folding one leg underneath of her, so she faced him. Never mind that she had yet to say a word yet, she was damn near screaming at him to talk with that look of hers.

John finally dropped his hand away from his eyes and turned his head enough to acknowledge her with a glare. “What?”

“You haven’t been sleeping,” Zed replied.

“You’re wrong.”

“John, you look like hell.”

“Feel like it too, love, but I’ve been sleeping plenty. The problem may be too much of it.”

“You don’t look like you’ve slept.”

“Appearances are always deceiving.”

Zed took in a big breath, the kind that meant she thought she’d discovered a unique plea to the universe and John steeled himself for the inevitable well-meaning-but-too-often-too-inexperienced-to-be-of-use remark that he would have to correct before Zed wound up creating a whole understanding of the nature of magic from a rotten pile of errant thoughts which would some day get her killed. She paused a moment and pouted those lips of hers into a frown. Still scowling away in thought, she shoved her hand up in her hair and rested the elbow on the point of her knee. “Maybe it’s your dreams that are the problem. Any recurring nightmares?”

A slow sarcastic smile eased over John’s mouth while he listened to her. He still couldn’t look at her directly. “Plenty.”

“What have they been about?”

“No.” John rose from his seat and headed towards the hideout’s kitchenette.

“What do you mean ‘no’?” Zed demanded, making her voice carry across the room.

“I know you’re bad with the definition, but you should’ve caught onto it by now. No means no.”

“John, I’d tell you if I was having nightmares.”  
“I’d hope so.”

“So why won’t you tell me?”

John rooted around in a cabinet for some kind of food. Chas kept the place well stocked which was a blessing all in of itself. However, he seemed to think that John should be eating more reasonable things that required cooking and without Chas around, John was more likely to grab a bag of chips and a bottle instead of a ‘proper’ meal. Chas had caught onto this tactic though, and refused to stock ‘crap’ food anymore.

Little did Chas know that John had actually gone to a store himself and stocked the freezer with frozen meals. John yanked out and then did a slow turn around the kitchenette.

No microwave.

With a loud sigh, John shoved the dinner back into the freezer.

Zed crossed the room and leaned against the other side of the counter. The raised portion of the kitchenette made it so that the room side of the counter was a foot lower and so Zed looked more like a petulant child than usual. “Give me an answer, John.”

“I’m the mentor. You’re the mentoree. That affords me certain privileges. Like not telling you what goes on inside my head.”

“Talking about your dreams can help. I can help.”

John sighed even louder and longer. In desperation, he sagged and leaned back against the fridge. “Look, my dreams are not a thing to be discussed. With anyone. For any reason. Ever.” He pushed away from the fridge. “But you know what, cook something up for food and I’ll give you an idea of what might be going on.”

“I don’t know how,” Zed said.

“Then go get something for us to eat. I’m starving and I’m not talking on an empty stomach.”

“You promise?”

“Swear I will tell you everything I know ‘bout these recent dreams of mine,” John said.

“And you’ll still be here?”

“Yes. Go on now, get us some food.”

*************

Zed took her sweet time getting food and returning with Thai takeout. The food was half-cold before John even had a bite of it, but living out in the middle of the woods didn’t make for a quick run into any place. The nearest Thai place had to be all the way in Atlanta anyway. When John had tried asking what took her so long, Zed had only replied, “I had a thing to do.”

Honestly, John cared more about getting the food into his stomach than what Zed may or may not have been doing in the meantime. He’d closed his eyes for a few seconds while she was gone and tried to rest, but his body wasn’t willing to comply with his mind’s demand.

Zed waited until John dropped the plastic fork down into a food container. She slowly bit at another piece of her noodles and watched him lean back against the leather couch once more. After swallowing down her bite, but still with fork poised to stab at more, she said, “Okay. You ate. You promised me.”

“That I did,” John said. “And here’s what I know about my dreams lately.”

And then John said nothing.

“Well?” Zed demanded.

“I don’t remember a damn thing,” John said.

Zed stabbed her fork down into the container and set it aside. “Is everything a trick with you?”

“Look at that, you’re learning!”

“You’re damn right I am.” Zed reached into her purse and pulled out a thermos.

“What have you got there?” John asked.

Zed went off the end of the couch, snatched at John’s scalp as she went, and headed into the kitchen.

“Oi!” John snapped. He rose from the couch and followed her.

“I thought you’d do something like that, so I brewed up something in town.”

“What do you have?” All the mirth and polite teasing had fled from his voice, from his features. 

“A tea made from an African Dream Root. I read about it in one of your books,” Zed said. She pulled down two cups. In one, she poured a glass of light brown tea. Into the other, she dumped three of John’s stolen hairs before pouring the tea. “We drink up and enter your dreams. Maybe we can see what’s really going on in there.”

John grabbed the second cup, the one with his hair, and tossed both cup and contents into the sink.

“I’ve got more,” Zed said defiantly. “I’m coming with you.”

“You do that and I will never speak to you again,” John threatened.

“John—”

“I am not joking around, Zed. You come into my dreams and we are through.”

Zed managed that perfect blend of not-quite-tears and not-quite-sullen glare as she looked up at him.

“You’ve been getting an idea of what it’s like to live the kind of life I lead. Seen a few things, but you’re no expert.”

“I know about Astra,” Zed said.

“And I wish you didn’t,” John replied. He put his hands on her shoulders and bent slightly to be slightly more on her level. “And I also wish that what happened to Astra was the absolutely worse thing I’ve ever seen. It isn’t. My dreamscape is a place even I hate to tread and if this is the root I think it is, if you died inside my head, you’d die for real, Zed. You’re not ready for that. Nowhere close. I am not fooling on this one.”

Zed backed away slowly. One moment of silence slid into two until Zed finally motioned at the lone cup. “You should still use it. It’ll make sure you sleep and grant you more control over the dream. Plus it was expensive.”

John took the thermos and dumped the rest of the contents into the sink so that only the one cup remained.

Zed folded her arms over her chest.

“Show me your pockets, bag.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want you brewing more while I’m under and surprising me.”

Zed shook her head. “There isn’t any more.”

John cocked an eyebrow at her. “I find that hard to believe.”

“Like you said, I’m beginning to learn. You said don’t go, I won’t go.”

“I also said to turn out your pockets and show me your bag, but you’re not doing it.”

Zed rolled her eyes, stalked off to her purse, and returned with a plastic bag that still held a few dried brown roots.

John took the bag from her. “All right. Clear out while I take this stuff.”

“No.”

“Zed—”

“You said that taking this and walking in your dreams can kill me. What about you? Could you die from it?”

“There is a chance of that.”

“Then I’m not going anywhere until you wake up.”

John wagged the plastic bag in front of her. “I can’t trust you here.”

“You said you wouldn’t talk to me again if I took it. You meant that, didn’t you?”

“With every fiber of my soul.”

“Then I promise I won’t take it. I’ll listen this time, but you need someone here in this world to pull you out or give you CPR.”

John didn’t have the heart to tell her that CPR wouldn’t save him if he died inside his own mind. She had that caring determined look on her face and so long as she stuck to the agreement, then Zed would be safe enough. Besides, if he pushed any harder, she’d find something potentially more dangerous to do instead.

“All right. You can read some more or something,” John muttered. He grabbed the cup of tea and dumped the contents into the back of his throat. As he walked away, he asked, “How fast is this supposed to work?”

Between steps, Zed disappeared. 

John spun ‘round to look for her. “Zed!”

On the second spin around, he wasn’t in Jasper’s hideout anymore. His clothes had been replaced with white patient’s clothes and all around him were the walls of his room back at Ravenscar. 

“Bullocks,” John sighed.

He rolled his shoulders, then his head back and forth a few times. A song might help rev him up. The Pistol’s ‘Pretty Vacant’ seemed a good choice for the occasion.

The song began playing loudly from the speaker—not that a speaker had been there two seconds ago, but it was there now.

“That is a new trick,” John muttered. “Can’t delay the inevitable, though.”

After rolling his shoulders one more time, John reached forward and yanked the door open.

The hallway beyond was dusty and dirty. A random bug crawled down towards the recreational room. Its legs skittered loudly along the edge of the wall and moved with relentless speed. Not having any better plan of action, John shrugged and followed along cautiously behind.

Somehow, between steps, the hallway brightened and tidied itself. No trace of dust or dirt was left to the naked eye and the lights turned out more intense on the new whiteness. John squinted against the sudden change.

The bug vanished.

“Okay,” John said. “Dead end probably anyway.”

A man’s scream echoed off the walls. It reverberated through John.

“Didn’t happen,” John told himself. “No one’s in trouble. I’m the one with control here.”

“Help me,” the screamer sobbed.

“It’s not happening!” John shouted in return. 

Another scream.

John willed the screaming to stop.

Sobs of broken pain echoed off the walls. 

“Not going away then. Guess it’s up to me to find you unless you’re willing to give me a hint?” John asked the open air.

No change in the sobbing.

Thus John had to search the building room by room. The sobs echoed too much to make sourcing the location an easy task. As a constant noise, the sobs fell almost away into background and John had to focus on them or they became something indistinct but still nagging at his nerves.

His focus was so intent that John barely heard the footstep behind him. He turned slowly.

A tall man with light brown hair stood a few feet away. The smile on his face was eerie enough, but the blackness of his eyes sold the deal on terrifying persona. He hefted an axe up into his hands. As John stared, the man’s patient smile grew into an eager smirk. “Hey there.”

Then the man swung the axe at John’s head.

John dodged the attack, but fell on his ass. He stretched out his arm and took in a deep breath for the exorcism chant.

The man brought the axe up for another strike, so John pushed himself out of the way. He wound up with his back against the wall. Not a too uncommon position, so he rattled off, “I’m addressing the entity inside—”

The man grabbed John by the t-shirt and lifted him up off the ground. He shoved him against the wall hard enough to rattle John’s head back against it a second time. “That’s the problem,” the man snarled in glee. “I am the entity inside.”

“You don’t look like any demon I’ve met before,” John replied. “You’re far too pretty.”

That was when John spied the mark on the man’s inner arm. Red and bright, the Mark of Cain resonated with its own blend of violent power. The lights in the hall shifted red and the man’s bright white teeth reflected the new glow into a madman’s sinister joy.

“My dreams are being haunted by bloody Cain himself?” John said.

“What?” The man laughed at John. “You’re a bigger moron than I thought.”

“You’re not the one in control of the dream?”

“Hate to tell you, but this isn’t a dream,” the man replied.

John tried to pull at the man’s hands, but he had too good of a grip.

More annoyingly, the man held him up with one hand and dropped his other down to his side. John thought the other man was showing off strength, but an old jawbone with a leather wrapped handle appeared in the man’s free hand.

“No,” John shouted. “No!” He pushed at the man’s face and batted and kicked, but the man still had a good grip on him.

The man brought the blade up and put the cutting edge along John’s torso. 

“No!”

John struggled and the blade pressed in along his side, cutting into his flesh. He screamed out in pain.

The lights switched from red to pure white again. The man dropped him and John fell to the floor in an ungraceful pile.

With a savage snarl, the man spun towards the end of the hall.

John twisted his head to see what could piss off something that powerful.

Castiel stood at the very end. He had his feet shoulder-width apart and he commanded, “Put down your weapon, Dean.”

Dean chose to charge Castiel instead.

All Castiel did was raise his hand and snap his fingers. Dean splattered into a shower of blood and flesh that coated the white hallway and John. Bits landed in his mouth, but nothing of that mattered. Castiel strode through the mess as if none of it existed.

There was something wrong with his face. Bright red sores blossomed around his eyes and down one cheek. His stance and manner had too much arrogance.

Or maybe seeing him turn a man into droplets and yet walking as if nothing happened unnerved John the most.

John scrambled up to his feet and ran for the opposite end of the hallway. He had only gotten a few feet when a force knocked him to his stomach. Something invisible latched around his ankles and yanked him across the floor. He twisted onto his back and clawed at anything he could get his hands on, but the hallway was slick with blood.

“John Constantine,” Castiel said.

John slid to a stop mere inches from Castiel’s feet. He dared to raise his eyes up to Castiel’s blistered face and prop himself up on his elbows. Words, however, called for more bravery than he could shove together at that precise second.

Castiel tilted his head to the side. “This is your chance for repentance.”

“My what?” John said.

“You are fearful of me. I just saved your life and this is your response? This is how you thank your God?”

“God,” John repeated slowly. “Castiel—what’s happening?”

“You’re mistaken. I am not Castiel. I am your God.” He narrowed his eyes at John. “John Constantine. You’re a liar. A cheap conman. You damned a girl to Hell. You murdered your friend. Your sins are many. Repent unto me and be saved.”

John lifted his chin. “No offense, but I didn’t fall for this shit the first time.”

“Because you were here.” God/Castiel—whatever this thing before him was looked up and motioned with a blemished hand at their surroundings. “You were attempting to repent, so I chose not to come for you.”

“You’re not real,” John growled.

God/Castiel swept his gaze back down to John. “I am very real.”

John slid down the hall backwards and smacked into the wall. He groaned as he pushed up to his knees. 

That thing was walking down the hall towards him. Lights flickered as it walked past.

Dying in the dream meant dying in real life. 

Oh, he was fucked.


	2. Chapter 2

God/Castiel or Castiel/God—there had to be a better name for the thing stalking down the hall towards John but he had far more pressing concerns at the moment—droned on in that oddly calm, deliberate manner. “I will save her, John. I will save all of those who are lost and broken.”

John staggered to his feet and ran down the hall.

“You can not run from your punishment!” Castiel/God shouted.

Fuck if he couldn’t give it a good go, though. John ran down the hall, took a sharp turn to the left, and down a flight of stairs to the main floor. Half the lights had fried down here while the others only gave the barest illumination. Sulfur permeated the air and the rotten-egg stench filled John’s mouth and nose so much he gagged. Unable to run further, he leaned against the wall and took in long ragged breaths.

His hands were suddenly dragged out in front of him. Even though he tugged at them, they were held fast.

“John!” Zed shouted as she appeared before him. Her eyes were wide.

“I told you to stay out!” John screamed.

“You’re bleeding! You won’t wake up!”

“Get out of my head!”

“John, you have to make yourself wake up,” Zed pleaded. “Nothing I’m doing is working!”

“I’m not in control! All that stupid root has done is shove me too far under,” John said.

“But the book said—”

“Books can be wrong. They often are.”

“You have the control.”

“I’m telling you that I don’t!”

“Someone has to!” Zed snapped. 

John’s eyes widened and his mouth nearly dropped open. How could he have been so stupid? Well, to be fair, he’d been terrified for the last long while. “I am a moron,” he whispered.

“What?”

“This isn’t my dream. It’s someone else’s.”

“How is that even possible? Did you cast a spell?”

“No. And I’ll have to figure out how.”

“John Constantine,” God/Castiel shouted from the stairwell.

“You have to go,” John said.

“Let me take the root. Let me help you.”

“No.”

“You’re bleeding and terrified, John. You need help!”

“I’ll find it. Now, keep the hell out of my head!” John wrenched his wrists away from Zed’s grasp.

After one last fearful look, Zed disappeared into thin air.

“John!” Castiel/God said.

John took off for the main entrance. The old castle of Ravenscar had nice big wide doors and a huge expanse of welcoming hallway at the way into this establishment. He’d run out those doors, see where this dreamscape headed after that, and do his best to survive until he found the actual dreamer. So far, God/Castiel hadn’t caught up to him or even bothered to increase his pace. John should be in the clear to get out the door. He rounded the final corner.

To find a hall full of zombie corpses. The horde of them turned as one to face John and he saw too many familiar faces among them. They lurched towards him with jagged, halting steps.

John stumbled backwards. Would each entrance be blocked? He couldn’t go back the way he’d come, that thing would kill him. No spell could handle all of this, besides that he had no materials for much of anything. 

“Help me!” John shouted—praying that the man’s lonely terrified screams he’d began this insane chase with weren’t somehow a loop of his own. “Whoever’s in charge of this show, help me!”

A shotgun blast roared. The wielder pumped another round into the chamber and let loose round after round.

John clamped his hands over his ears and staggered backwards.

A man stepped forward and past him. Ridiculously tall and broad shouldered, the man had no problem handling a shotgun’s recoil, so each round plummeted into the zombified crowd. Once the zombies were deterred, the man turned and grabbed John’s arm. He only tugged a single time before releasing him. “Come on.”

Then the man was running down the hall.

Not having any other choice, John sprinted to keep up with the long-legged savior. They ran through the halls without hesitating, but John saw and heard things in the corner of his senses that he prayed he’d never remember in the light of day.

“In here,” the man said as he shoved open a door.

John bolted through the opening.

They stood in a living room that had long since been converted into an occult study. Books crammed every shelf and more were strewn across the rug. An older man man with a baseball cap was hunched over the desk in front of the fireplace while a red-headed woman paced back and forth. She drew more of John’s attention—something about the neatly-pressed attire and regal stance didn’t fit the rest of the room.

The savior slammed the door shut behind them and all those dreaded noises of walking dead and other horrors ceased.

“What the hell?” the man at the desk demanded. “Who’s this asshat?”

John flopped down onto the couch.

“That’s John Constantine,” the long-haired savior said. “Not that anyone’s going to remember this conversation.”

John straightened up. “Hold on, you’ve got that much presence of mind? Are you the dreamer?”

The man had been walking from the study into a kitchen, but he slowly turned back towards John. “You’ve never asked that before.”

“We’ve met?”

“Every night this week. You don’t remember?”

“No.”

The man sighed and continued walking away.

The other man and the woman were preoccupied with books. Not likely to be much use or company if they barely had a reaction to his presence. 

“Wait.” John sprang up from the couch and followed the man into the kitchen. “Who are you?”

“Sam Winchester.” He scoffed, “Not that you’re going—”

“—to remember. I just might this time, mate. The rules are different.”

“How?”

“I took this African Dream Root. Was trying to get a bit of control on this madhouse.”

“I took it too. Is it working for you?”

“I seem to be more aware this time,” John said. “Alas, the control I had was fleeting.”

“Yeah,” Sam sighed. “Same here.” He ran his eyes over John. “Think you’ve got any of it left?”

John glanced down at his blood-splattered clothes. “Worth a shot,” he muttered with a shrug.

There. His clothes shifted into his usual suit pants, white dress shirt, and red tie. All the blood vanished as well. Besides feeling better for an illusionary set of clothes, this expenditure of will meant that the limited control hadn’t vanished entirely.

“How’d you get covered in blood?”

“Something looking like Castiel and calling itself God made a demon with the Mark of Cain explode.”

“Dean?”

“Yeah.”

Sam asked, “You saw Dean?”

“Take it you know him?”

“He’s my brother. He took the root too.” Sam pushed hair out of his face. The worry in his eyes was more than a bit apparent and John felt a bit of his gut drop at the bad news he had to deliver. Sam seemed like a decent man.

“The demon I saw exploded, I’m sorry,” John said.

“Dean’s not a demon anymore.”

John frowned. “Anymore?”

“We cured him,” Sam replied.

“You can’t cure a demon, mate.”

“There’s a ritual,” Sam said. “You use the sanctified blood—”

“Not the Men of Letters hoax again,” John groaned. He searched his pockets for cigarettes, realized that the nicotine would do nothing for him in a dreamscape, so gave up the hunt. 

“Hoax?” Sam shook his head. “I’ve gotten it to work.”

Oh hell, this dream was vivid enough to at least appreciate the feel of a cigarette. John hunted through his pockets again and found a crunched half-pack and a lighter. “Works for about three months and then the demon takes root again. It gets very pissed off for the attempt to humanize it.”

“You know what? That’s my problem for another day. Tonight it’s about surviving whatever’s going on here.” Sam strode back into the study. “Bobby, have you found anything?”

“Dreams don’t work that way.” John sauntered after Sam. “He can’t know anything you don’t already know. Even vision dreams are a strange bit of work of your subconscious attempting to communicate.”

“Except if that was strictly true, we never would have met,” Sam said. He leaned over Bobby’s shoulder. “Bobby might be able to access everyone’s memory.”

“Fair point.”

“Sorry, Sam, I got nothin’ on multiple dreamers. You shouldn’t be in each other’s heads without a spell or swallowing bits of each other.”

“Someone’s coming,” the woman said.

The front door of the house burst open and a man hurried through before slamming it shut again. “Sam! Sam, I need a little help here!”

Both Sam and John went to the front hall. Dean shoved his shoulder into the door, but a force continued pushing on the door in an attempt to force it open. Sam nudged John’s arm and nodded over at a bookcase. Between the two of them, and Dean’s eventual help when they were close enough, the three of them barricaded the door.

Dean backed away and continued panting. “You could’ve mentioned it was a freaking nightmare out there.”

“I did,” Sam insisted.

“Oh, right.” Dean wiped sweat from his brow. “But you didn’t say anything about coal-oil-demons trying to scorch everything.”

“What?”

“They’re not demons, they’re ghosts,” John said. “And that would be part of my head, not his.”

“You in charge of this freak show?” Dean asked.

“He’s a victim like me,” Sam said.

“Oh. Are we in Bobby’s house? Man, I miss this place.” Dismissing the two of them, Dean strode into the study while sweeping his gaze back and forth over the house. “Bobby? Anna?” He pointed at the woman. “Bobby I get. Why are you dreaming about her?”

“I haven’t been able to figure that out.” Sam looked to John. “Do you know her?”

“Never seen her before. Who is she?”

“She can hear you,” Anna said. She crossed her arms.

“She was an Angel,” Sam explained.

“Bullocks,” John muttered.

“What?” Dean demanded.

“Sometimes I am too thick,” John said. “She have any connection to Castiel?”

“Uh, yeah. She used to be in charge of Cas’s garrison.”

“That mean something?” Dean asked.

John hunted through the bookshelves for something that might be of use to him. “You his ex-boyfriend?”

“What? No!” Sam said.

“But you’re connected somehow.”

“We’ve been friends for years.”

“That might be enough.”

“Whoa, hold on, I had to coerce my way into this nightmare,” Dean said, “and Cas and I share a more profound bond or whatever.”

“So he’s your ex-boyfriend?”

“No! He pulled me out of Hell.” Dean glared at John. “What’s with the sex obsession?”

“I’m trying to figure out why I’m here.” John squatted next to the bookshelf.

“Is he your ex-boyfriend?” Sam asked.

“We had sex the one time,” John replied. “Don’t know how that qualifies me into this setup.”

“Did you use a condom?” Bobby asked. When John stayed perfectly still, Bobby tacked on, “Idjit.”

“Seriously,” Dean agreed. “Who doesn’t use a condom?”

“Fallen Angel and an immortal man, STD’s seemed impossible. When you’re damned, that’s about the only thing that could make your day any worse.” John knocked books from the shelf in an attempt to speed up the hunt. A whole library of occult couldn’t be entirely useless.

“Hold on, you were in a three-way with Cas?” Dean asked.

“Yeah,” Sam said with a roll of his eyes, “that’s the important part of that statement.”

“What I can’t figure out is that if his friend’s here, and I’m here, why haven’t we seen Jack?” John asked.

“Who?” Dean said.

“Captain Jack Harkness,” Sam replied. “I’ve seen a projection of him, but he didn’t seem like another dreamer.”

“Because he can’t be,” Anna said. “He’s the Abomination. He never sleeps.”

“Lucky bastard,” John muttered. He sat back on his ass and took another drag of the cigarette. One bonus of dreamscape, the cigarette never seemed to actually burn away between his fingers. 

“Are you actually smoking?” Dean asked.

“It’s the thought that counts.”

“Yeah, well, try to get more productive with those,” Dean grumbled.

“Because you are so helpful,” John said. “Why are you even here again?”

“He wanted to help,” Sam explained.

“I had someone wanting to do that,” John replied.

“Where are they?” Dean said.

John rose from the floor. “I told her to piss off.”

“This isn’t helping.” Sam ran both his hands through his long hair and tucked strands away. “We can’t fight each other and whatever’s going on here.”

John continued knocking books from the shelves to the floors.

“You going to clean up that mess when you’re done?” Bobby demanded.

“What are you even looking for?” Dean said.

An ancient looking leather bound book rested hidden on the shelf behind a half dozen hardbound paper volumes. John pulled the book out and opened it up. Despite the age, the vellum pages turned like new. “Either of you know enough Enochian to write a book?”

“No,” Sam replied.

“Is it out of your head?” Dean asked.

“I did not have anything to do with getting Lucifer out of or into the Cage,” John said. He closed the book and dropped it onto Bobby’s desk. “That looks to be a full account of the Apocalypse you boys averted a few years back.”

Dean went to the book and flipped it open, but he only scowled at the pages for a few minutes before slamming it shut again. “That means Cas has got to be around here somewhere.”

“Castiel,” John corrected.

Dean gave John the kind of smile predators used to say ‘back off’ in the wild. “He’s Cas to me. Has been for years. Guess you’re not as close.”

“Or you’re just a complete moron,” John replied. He shoved both hands in his pockets and stepped into Dean’s personal space. “Names have power and shortening Castiel’s truncates his influence on our plane. If an Angel gave you its whole name to use, there had to be a good reason.”

“Maybe you should stop saying it,” Anna said. Her eyes drifted back to the door Sam and John had come through.

“You’re not really here,” Dean snapped. 

“You should do what she says,” Sam replied. “She’s been acting like an early warning system.”

“Must be her role in all this,” John said. “We must all have one except for your tag-a-long.”

“Dean has a point. I don’t know why if that Angel’s the principle dreamer he didn’t bring Dean into this from the beginning,” Sam said. “Or how that Angel’s even a dreamer.”

“He sleeps. I’ve seen him do it,” John said.

“But Dean not being included?”

“Those two idjits haven’t been exactly close lately, have they?” Bobby gruffly pointed out. “First he kicks him out of the bunker because of Ezekiel, excuse me Gadreel, and then he goes and gets the Mark of Cain and becomes a demon? Talk about your psychic distance.”

Dean slammed both hands onto Bobby’s desk and cocked his head at John. “And asshole over there, huh? He fucks him once and suddenly gets invited to the party?”

Bobby didn’t even flinch at Dean’s sudden display of rage. “Come on, you boys have had one night stands that felt like more. I know you have. Somehow, John resonated with him in that night.” Bobby flicked his gaze over to John. “Didn’t hurt that you spent the whole night talking about how to restore his Grace.”

“He heard that, did he?” John said.

“Well, duh,” Bobby replied.

“We should really stop talking about him,” Anna said. She paced over to a window near the door.

“You know how to restore Cas’s Grace?” Dean asked.

“Guys, Anna doesn’t usually flip out for no reason,” Sam said. “We should follow her advice.”

Anna slowly turned her head from the window to look at them. “It’s too late.”

The door swung open with such force that it broke in two from the impact against the wall. A rush of wind blew through the study and shoved at everyone in the room, though only John wound up knocked backwards hard enough to send him to the floor.

John slowly craned his head up towards the door.

God/Castiel stepped through and stared down at John’s prone form. “I told you that it was pointless hiding from me.” He raised his hand, fingers ready to snap.


	3. Chapter 3

John dug his fingers into the worn rug beneath him and stared up in horror at God/Castiel. This would be it. Death by nightmare. Poetic, somehow. He had been the cause of so many of other people’s night terrors, he deserved to die by someone else’s.

Sam swept an arm up and pointed a revolver at God/Castiel. He let off a single shot that burrowed into God/Castiel’s head.

God/Castiel shifted his attention over to Sam. “You seek to defy me again?”

“Projection?” Dean asked.

“Yeah!” Sam replied.

“What are you planning?” God/Castiel asked. He tilted his head and smiled like this whole scene was one big farce for him.

A brutal smile twisted Dean’s lip up. He dropped his right hand down by his side.

“Don’t!” Bobby shouted as he stood. “Dean, don’t do—”

God/Castiel snapped his fingers and Bobby exploded into a shower of bloody bits. For the second time, John was rained with blood and pieces of flesh.

The old sharpened jawbone with the leather wrapped handle appeared in Dean’s hand. As he moved forward, the Mark on his arm emitted a dull red light that brightened in time to a heartbeat. Sulfur caked the air and the fire burned hotter. Flames whooshed from the fireplace. Sparks caught the pile of books John had created on fire, which caused thick black smoke to billow up.

Dean brought his arm back for a killing strike against God/Castiel.

That bone wasn’t just any old bone. That was the First Blade. In the hand of the man with the Mark of Cain. Going against, even as a projection, a powerful being. 

The Law of Conservation of Energy—a principle of science and magic alike—rang through John’s mind.

All too late, John realized what Bobby had pieced together mere seconds before.

Dean shoved the Blade into God/Castiel’s abdomen and ripped it up through flesh until he had split God/Castiel nearly in two. Blood black as oil poured in a long wet slick sound from the body. It fell limply to the floor.

Stepping away, Dean shook the blood off the Blade before lifting up his shirt and tucking it into the back of his pants. John caught the red swell around the Mark before Dean rolled his sleeve down to cover it. “Wish we’d had that the first time around,” he said calmly.

“Don’t say that,” Sam said. “How do you even have it?”

Dean shrugged. “Must be the dream root.”

John rose carefully from the floor.

“Monster,” Anna said from her spot near the window. She glared at Dean and an Angel Blade dropped into her hand.

Dean reached for his Blade again.

“Whoa!” Sam said.

John would’ve shouted, but since he’d been nearly disemboweled by a projection of the man before him, he didn’t see that drawing attention to himself in this particular moment would do anything more than anger a dangerous man. Better to do what he did best, wait and watch for an opportunity to deal with the problem.

“We don’t need to fight,” Sam insisted. “Both of you put your weapons away.”

“He’s a monster,” Anna repeated. “We have to put him down, Sam.”

“No!” Sam said.

“He can’t be saved. Not anymore.”

Dean squared his shoulders. “You really wanna do this?”

“Dean, she’s a projection!”

While the three of them bickered, John tried to exert a bit of will to put out the fire. The books went out with a wave of his hand. Grinning slightly to himself, he waved his hand over the books again to relight the fire. As he went to put them out again, he saw black blood running in a stream towards him. He stepped away and traced the blood back to God/Castiel’s body.

Blood continued to bubble up from the body and pour over the floor. Besides the stream heading for John, a river of it snaked across the rug towards Sam and the others.

“So? She’s becoming a threat.”

“You’re the real threat,” Anna said.

“We’ve got a bigger problem, mates,” John interrupted. He pointed to the black oozing blood.

Both Sam and Dean jumped away before the blood could touch them. Sam said, “What is it?”

“Leviathan,” Dean muttered. “We gotta go. Now.”

“Where? The other door’s blocked.”

Dean shoved Anna aside and shoved open a window. The scene beyond was a stormy night in a green countryside. “Any better ideas?”

“No,” John admitted. Carefully dodging the blood, he made his way across the room and to the window. Sam and Dean climbed through ahead of him, so they didn’t see the blood rise and try to reach for John’s ankle as he pulled himself through.

They didn’t wind up in the countryside. 

Instead, John stood up and found they were standing in the hallway of Ravenscar once more. He wore the white patient’s clothes again, so did Sam and Dean. In defiance, John exerted a bit of will to change the outfit, but nothing happened. His will had no power here anymore.

Sam was inspecting the clothes too. “I can’t change them.”

“Me neither. He must be part of this dreamscape or, at least, whatever’s in charge around here is,” John said. “I can’t call anything to me. Not even make the music play. I could when this started tonight.”

“So he’s getting stronger?” Sam said. “Is that a good thing?”

“If we find him, we should be able to convince him to end this,” John said.

Dean reached back and pulled out the First Blade from his waistband. With a grin, he waved it. “Hey, at least we’re not completely defenseless.”

“Only a moron thinks he’s defenseless without a tool like that,” John said.

“Sorry, what were you doing when you were about to get blasted by Godstiel? Cowering in the corner. Maybe I should have let him kill you.”

“Can we stop fighting for two seconds?” Sam demanded. “We’re not getting anywhere.”

“Sure we are,” John said. “We’re getting well and truly fucked because your brother here not only bears the Mark of Cain, he actually summoned the First Blade inside a dreamscape that already has enough nightmares to damn a small town.”

For a moment there, John thought he saw Dean’s eyes shift from green to black with a strange red glow. Sam had his back to Dean at the time and by the time he turned, Dean’s eyes returned to normal.

“Sam,” John said slowly. The tall man had a point about moving onwards. “You remember these dreams best. Any recurring themes?”

“I, uh, start out in different places, but I’m always saving somebody. I show up just in time to rescue them and lead them back to Bobby’s. You’re usually one of them and you’re usually running from Godstiel.”

“And frequent places?” 

“Bobby’s and this mental institution. I think I caught the name. Ravenscar. It’s the biggest of the dreamscape locations. I always find you somewhere in here.” Sam reached into his pocket and searched. With a frown, he pulled out a folded piece of paper. “I guess the dream root’s working differently. I was thinking it’d be nice to know who’s supposed to be in here.”

John took the paper and unfolded it. “It’s a roster.” He flipped the page around with his finger indicating a name. “Castiel is at the top of the list.”

“So he could be here,” Dean said.

“All signs are pointing that way,” John said.

“But why?”

“The piece of me that Castiel took was a part of my mind,” Sam explained. “He took my mental illness away. It drove him insane. We had to leave him in a mental hospital. Maybe he’s trying to get help in his dreamscape by going to therapy.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Dean griped.

“Makes more sense than most things,” John said. “If this is the stable environment, there has to be a reason.”

“Yeah but he got his head put back on right in Purgatory,” Dean replied. “He’s not crazy anymore.”

“Did he? Crap like I had doesn’t just disappear. Castiel couldn’t even heal it away, he had to take it on instead. What if he’s not all right?” Sam asked.

“You mean what if he’s been crazy this whole time and just playing sane well?” Dean said. “Naw, I don’t buy it.”

“Madness doesn’t simply disappear,” John said. “You can manage it, but it’s always there. Lurking, waiting for the day when your guard slips a fragment so that it can seize your senses and twist the world into a horrific unfamiliar nightmare.”

“Sounds like you’re familiar with it,” Dean said.

“Should be.” John held out both arms. “We’re in my asylum.”

A moment of shared understanding and compassion filled Sam’s expression. John could see it from the corner of his eye, but he wouldn’t acknowledge it outright. Mentally Unstable Brothers-in-Arms might sound like a fine idea on paper, only John feared that if they cemented their madness together, something worse would wreck havoc on the halls to destroy them. They understood each other better now. That was enough.

“Wait, so I’m the only one that doesn’t belong in a psych ward here?” Dean asked. “No wonder everything’s so freaking terrifying.”

“Yeah, you and your alcoholism and rage issues really typify the poster boy of mental health,” Sam replied.

Dean shrugged as a concession of Sam’s point. “What’s our next move?”

“Well, we seem to be following enough rules here. When you want to find out what’s wrong with a patient, where do you look?” John asked. He shoved his hands in his pockets and strode away. After he got past Dean, he said, “Let’s go see what’s on his record.”

************* 

Dean tapped his finger against the nameplate on the head doctor’s door. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

John leaned in and read the name.

Dr. Metatron.

“Someone has a real sick sense of humor,” Dean grumbled as he twisted the door handle.

“Wonder what it means,” Sam said. “Why would Castiel put him in charge?”

“People view the head of an institution in too many different ways to tell.” John strolled into the psychiatrist’s office. While the office should have been the one John knew all too well, this dream-version had variances. The color scheme of dark wood and reds remained the same, but there were far too many file cabinets, a typewriter on the desk instead of a computer, and a general more-lived-in feel to the space. “Could be he thinks Metatron has power over him or controls him. Could be as simple as thinking that Metatron understands him better than most. Jailer, guide, friend, enemy, useless, lifeline or even all at once. It’s a bizarre sort of mixed bag.”

Dean scanned over the books on a set of the shelves as he walked towards the desk. “Yeah, well, if there’s any Angel that belongs in a psych hospital it’s that asshole. He’s worse than the Joker.”

“Let’s be careful what names we drop in here,” John said. He opened the nearest drawer of files and began a search. “Don’t want to wind up summoning the Stay-Puff Marshmallow Man or worse.”

“Come on,” Dean complained. “We could totally take that clown.”

“Stop talking about him,” Sam said.

“What? We don’t have control here!” Dean said. “We can’t summon anything up!” When neither man agreed with him, Dean sat down in a chair with a smug smile. “I’ll prove it. Beetlejuice. Beetlejuice. B—”

John rushed to Dean and slammed his hand over Dean’s mouth.

“Beetlejuice,” a man said as he walked through the door. Steely gray hair curled into a messy mop on top of the man’s head. He bore a sarcastic smile and had the stance of one used to being in charge of a situation. “Dean’s right, you know. In this place you three don’t have enough power to conjure up a whole other entity. You barely have enough to keep your wits intact.”

“Metatron,” Sam said. He swallowed. “What are you doing here?”

“It’s Doctor Metatron, and this is my office.” Metatron walked through the room and took his place at his desk. “You three aren’t supposed to be in here.”

“Sure we are,” John said. He sat in the other unoccupied chair across from Metatron. “We’re here for our session.”

Metatron scowled at him. “We don’t do joint sessions in here and I’m not your counselor.”

“Why not?” John asked with a smile. “You’re the mind in charge here. I want an upgrade.”

“Sorry, that’s not how therapy works.”

“My current doctor’s just not making the cut. I don’t feel like we’re getting any progress done together. I think I need someone else.” John pointed at Metatron. “I think I need you.”

Dean was sitting idly by and watching the interaction. Sam, at least, had enough brains to quietly open up one of the file drawers and continue searching while John played distraction.

“I’m sorry, John. My patient load is too high. I can’t take on anyone else. We’re getting a new doctor. Just a few more days for the paperwork to process and Dr. Nergal will be official. He’s actually requested to take on your case.”

A wave of icy fear doused John’s meager confidence. In the normal world, John proved no match for the demon. At the mercy of a dreamscape, John would suffer more than his fair share, which was a fairly large amount in the grand scheme of the universe. Even as John worried, he shoved his focus onto Metatron’s beard. If he thought about the demon too much, that could open the gateway for an appearance and John was not ready for that.

“Who the hell is—” Dean said.

“Don’t say that name ever,” John ordered. “Forget you heard it.”

Metatron folded his hands on top of his desk and smiled at them.

“You know, this is all great, but it’s getting a little too White Rabbit for me to make any sense.”

“That’s because you don’t belong here,” Metatron said. “You shouldn’t even be alive, Dean. I killed you.” His smile broadened. “You should have seen the look on Castiel’s face when I told him.”

Dean reached back and pulled out the First Blade. “You wanna go for round two, asshole?”

“That’s not my role here,” Metatron replied. “Now, I’ve entertained you three long enough. It’s time to go back to your rooms.”

“I think it’s time to cut your throat. Call it part of my therapy,” Dean said as he stood up.

Metatron chuckled. “That’s not how this works. You see, I don’t do the fighting. I’ve got orderlies for that.”

The drawer Sam was searching suddenly snapped shut. Six men—though John realized that was a bad term for the assortment of men, demons, and Angels who had walked into the room—dressed as orderlies broke off into pairs and went to grab each of them.

Dean fought hardest against his, but they pinned him to the ground with his arm hyper extended. One orderly kept smashing Dean’s wrist down in an attempt to make him release the Blade. Instead, Dean snarled and bit. An inhuman growl issued from his throat.

Sam’s men couldn’t get a proper hold on him right away. Those three fought and Sam favored a style of evading and twisting that got him the leverage to avoid their grasp. The fight wouldn’t last forever though, and Metatron’s orderlies would gain the upper advantage.

John let his orderlies lift him up out of the seat. By the time his feet hit the floor, John had found the opportunity he needed.

“We don’t know our roles!” John said.

The orderlies—except those having to hold a growling Dean down to the floor—hesitated while Metatron tilted his head to the side. “You’ve been fulfilling them,” Metatron said. “Quite spectacularly too.” 

“We want to understand them better,” Sam chimed in. “Make it the best story of Castiel’s recovery possible.”

Metatron leaned back in his seat and steepled his fingers together. “I suppose that isn’t a terrible goal, but how is your therapy going to help Castiel’s recovery?”

“Honestly, we’re hoping for a glimpse at his file,” John said. “Get at the true purpose of our roles so we can do our best.”

“All right, but Dean isn’t supposed to be here.” Metatron flicked his gaze over to the still-raging hunter. “Kill him.”

“No!” Sam shouted and strained against his orderlies.

“You don’t want to do that, mate,” John insisted. “Sam needs his brother alive. Kill him and you set Sam back too far.”

“That would affect Sam’s ability to perform his function,” Metatron agreed. “Okay, don’t kill him. But get him in a straight-jacket and muzzled before he screws anything else up.”

“Screw you!” Dean howled. He bucked the men on top of him.

The orderlies holding onto John’s arms glanced at John, then Metatron, then over to Dean.

“Yes, yes. Help them. Do I have to explain everything to you idiots?” Metatron said.

All six orderlies were required to remove Dean from the room. Even then, Dean fought their grasp. He shouted for Sam, cursed the orderlies, and threatened Metatron. One could dare to say that his rage had become something demonic.

Metatron reached into a desk drawer and pulled out a think vanilla folder and a tape recorder. “I can’t let you have this too long.”

“Understandable,” John said. “Just need a quick glance.” 

Metatron waved at the pile and his chair. John gave him a smile before rounding the desk.

Besides being a thick file, the pile of papers were tissue thin. John nearly ripped one in half opening the folder up. “Whole thing’s in Enochian,” John said.

“Were you expecting English? This is about an Angel,” Metatron scolded. He sat down in John’s former seat. “My desk looks much neater from over here.”

“Admittance form.” John moved the sheet off to the side so he could read the letters better. “Says he’s suffered from hallucinations of Lucifer, delusions of grandeur, mental reconstruction from an Angel named Naomi, and increasing depression from his current degrading physical condition.”

“None of that says why we’re here.”

“It’s an alien,” John mused as he read through the page. “Causing a feedback loop of negative psychic energy. The alien doesn’t have full control, not like it would with a human, but Castiel doesn’t have the strength to keep fighting on his own. Looks like we got tapped to fill our roles in his nightmare—you first. Probably because of the bit of mind he took from you.”

Sam neared the desk and picked up the tape recorder. “What about you?”

“Psychic and physical closeness. He’s actually in Atlanta.” John flipped through a few more pages gently. More details about the dreams that started since Castiel’s ‘admittance’ outlined a series of encounters. Castiel featured in the early ones, but the stories progressed into more narratives about Sam, John, and a few other notable personalities. Even Metatron had his own pages. “Seems that your role is to embody a sense of self-sacrifice and protection of others.”

“That’s right!” Metatron cheered.

John read only a few paragraphs further before rolling his eyes and looking up at Sam with of-course-it’s-this-way dismay all over his features. “I’m the coward trying to avoid the noose I’ve put around my own neck.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Sam said. “Why would Cas need someone to play that part out?”

“Because when he stole that Grace, he did it out of selfish greed to be what he once was.”

“You don’t know that.”

John waved at the pages. “He’s felt sorry ‘bout it for ages.”

“He wouldn’t have done something like that if he’d had another choice.”

John shook his head. “That’s not what this says. These claim that he took the easy way out.”

“Hindsight, always twenty-twenty,” Metatron said. “Castiel has been able to play out that scenario dozens of times in his therapy. In each one, he’s discovered a way to survive without taking the Grace, which means, no, he didn’t have to take it.”

“That’s stupid,” Sam said.

“There you are, trying to protect him from himself,” John joked with a wry grin. “Fulfilling your role.”

“How do we break him out of this?”

“That, I don’t know. Do you have any ideas, Doc?”

Metatron scowled at them. “Are you asking my opinion?”

“You’re the doctor, aren’t you? What therapy would you recommend for your patient?”

“I shouldn’t discuss another patient’s case with you,” Metatron said. “It’s illegal.”

John looked up at Sam. “How many of those orderlies do you think Dean’s killed by now?”

“Oh, he’s pretty good with that blade. Probably a dozen or so. Depends on if they’ve called for reinforcements.”

“So we’ve got Dr. Metatron here to ourselves.” John stood up and walked around the front of the desk. “Shut the door, find something sharp.”

“You’re willing to torture me?” Metatron said.

John shrugged. “What can I say? I’ll take any way out.”

Metatron laughed at him. “You’re getting your part in all this a little confused.”

John leaned against the desk and folded his arms. “Yeah? How?”

With an ever-broadening grin, Metatron slunk forward onto one knee. “You’re not just the coward. You’re the whipping boy.”

A single roach fell from Metatron’s body. It skittered across the floor before the second landed. A third, a fourth were faster. More and more plopped from Metatron to the floor.

“Run,” John said. “Run!”

Sam didn’t need the second command. Both of them hurried from the office. Sam had longer legs, but he kept checking over his shoulder to check on John’s progress. John dared not look back. He had no need to. The roaches clacked and chittered in a torrent behind him, so John threw every ounce of speed he had in keeping up with Sam.

They sprinted to the end of the hall and turned the corner. Sam came to a dead stop and John crashed into him, having to grab him in order to maintain any semblance of balance. 

At least a dozen, probably closer to two, bodies lay along the hall like pieces of litter after a football match. Carelessly dropped, torn to shreds, their blood and entrails coated the entire white tile. 

Dean Winchester stood at the far end with the First Blade in his hand. Blood coated his formerly white clothes and dripped from the end of the Blade. He glanced over his shoulder at them. His eyes were black again. The grin that crossed his lips held no trace of compassion, no hint of mercy, only the glee from violence.

John wondered if Hell could be any worse than this nightmare. Looked like he might find out much sooner than later.


	4. Chapter 4

“Any chance that’s a projection and not actually my brother?” Sam asked.

“Can’t you feel the power rolling off of him?” John said. “No projection’s managed that so far.” He glanced down the hall. The tide of roaches had slowed—oh the wonders of dreamscape effects—but they would be upon them at any second. “What’s the likelihood he’ll try to murder us?”

“Well, I’m kind of the one that humanized him, what do you think?” Sam said.

“I think that these bugs might feast on the bodies and we’ll be in the all clear.”

“I’m not going to kill you,” Dean called out as he strode down the hall towards them. “I can’t get out of this maze on my own. I need you.”

Neither man moved.

Dean stretched one arm out and motioned at them. “Get your asses over here before those things devour you.”

John glanced at the oncoming onslaught of roaches. They were closing the distance and gaining speed again. After taking a deep breath, John picked his way across the bodies to meet Dean in the center. Sam hesitated for a second before following John’s lead. 

The bugs sped up and came around the corner in a wave of motion. Dean was waving Sam and John, calling out to them to hurry up, and John rushed as much as he could across the mess. The mess, an undignified way to think about the slaughter among them. Small comfort could be taken in the fact that these were merely figments of imagination and not actual people murdered around them.

By the time John reached Dean, the bugs had devoured the corpses at the end of the hall and more and more piled in behind them. They rode over each other and onto the next corpses. A quick glance over his shoulder showed John that the bugs would overtake them if they kept at this slow crawl, yet they could hardly sprint down a hall with so many obstacles. 

Dean grabbed John’s arm and pulled him tight against his front, so they wound up front to back. “Sammy, stand close.”

“Those things are coming,” Sam said.

John panted and prayed that this madman had a plan. Dean’s breath played against the back of his neck and he felt certain things about the man that he’d rather not at this particular moment. Hospital scrubs left little to the imagination and Dean had an arm tight around him. When the skittering of the bugs got too close, John closed his eyes.

Nothing happened.

After a second, as the bugs chittered on, John peeked at the floor. The bugs continued through the hallway and avoided them by a short distance. They bumped against an invisible wall of protection.

Small problem, though. Instead of moving and leaving behind this part of the hall, the bugs multiplied in number as they fed. The protection lasted, but the bugs piled up around them. Eventually, they’d be overrun.

Dean put a hand on either of John’s shoulders. “I’ve got an idea.” His voice rumbled through his chest with vibrations of power that John dared not tried to source. “But I need your help.”

“What’s this idea?” John said. Panic laced his voice, made it edgier and higher. Coughing to clear it would put emphasis on the slight touch he had with Dean and he didn’t want to feel that.

“You’re an exorcist. I think we can banish this thing together.”

“This demon isn’t that simple. I watched it devour my friend. That was the only way to do it.”

Dean leaned in and whispered against John’s ear. “You didn’t have a Knight of Hell working with you last time. It’s a demon, but it’s a dream. We’ve got this.”

“Combine our wills and that’ll get the job done,” John said breathlessly.

“That’s the idea. We can’t stay stuck here forever.”

“Sorry, mate. Even in a dream world, I’m not taking in any of your power to do the deed.”

“What?”

“You’re a Knight of Hell,” John snapped, not caring if Sam overheard them or not. After all, the other Winchester probably ought to know what Dean was up to. “I’m no stranger to playing with fire, but that is far too much for my liking. I’m damned, not stupid.”

Dean growled. “We’re not going to last here much longer.”

John gritted his teeth and clenched his fists. These things were part of his nightmares, no doubt about that, and they’d probably only be satisfied by devouring him. Dean had exerted a level of control over the dream-demon, which wasn’t a good sign of remaining humanity. Dangerous man at his back, a demon at his front, all wrapped up in the mind of an Angel.

“I won’t use your power,” John said suddenly. “Not here. Get your hands off me. You’re blocking the connection.”

“What?”

“Get off me!”

Dean pushed John a step forward.

The roaches crawled for him. One of them broke through the barrier and a second followed it. They were going to swarm for him any second. John took a steadying breath, closed his eyes.

And prayed.

Not to God, not to Heaven, but to Castiel. All signs pointed that this was Castiel’s nightmare they’d been caught up in. The alien had brought everything to life, but if Castiel had been left merciless to its power, then Sam and John couldn’t have been brought into this mess. 

Roaches climbed up inside his pant leg.

He would not panic.

“Please, Castiel,” he muttered out loud. “They aren’t real. Make them not real. Castiel, please, make them not real.”

Every ounce, every fiber, every thought was poured into that litany.

A strong hand clapped on his back and brought him out of the trance.

Dean, green-eyed once more, grinned broadly at him and waved at the hallway. “I don’t know what you did, but you did it.”

John glanced around the hall. Both roaches and bodies had disappeared to leave only the pools of blood coating the floor. Amazed, John sagged in relief against one of the walls.

“What did you do?” Sam asked.

“I prayed,” John replied. “He can hear us, we try hard enough.”

“That was a stupid, risky thing to do,” Dean said.

Sam glanced at the First Blade still in Dean’s hand. “I don’t think you get to judge.”

Dean shook the blood off the blade and put it back in his waistband. With a shrug, he said, “Tool to get the job done.”

“Your eyes went demonic,” Sam said.

“What? Must be some nightmare thing you saw,” Dean replied.

John warily glanced at Dean from the corner of his eye. Most certainly, they’d seen a nightmare before. Too bad it was still right there beside them.

“We can’t mindlessly search this place.” Dean paced a few steps back and forth.

John stayed at his place, sagged against the wall, feeling more and more spent. This nightmare had kept them going for hours now. Eventually, his body would give out. While he wasn’t completely out of shape, he hadn’t slept and hadn’t ate much. All kinds of exhaustion tugged at him. 

If one fell asleep inside a dream, how much more dreaming could one do?

“You’re right. We need a plan,” Sam agreed. He looked to John. “This is your asylum. Do you have any ideas?”

“The hallways are longer than the real ones. Or at least they feel that way to me. I don’t know about you lot, but feels like we run forever and ever when we get going,” John said. He brushed fingers through his blonde hair and shook his head. “This place keeps changing too. We’re in a fine mess.”

“How are we going to get Cas to break this if we don’t tell him to?” Dean asked. “Pray until it happens?”

John rolled his eyes. “If it were that simple, we wouldn’t have this problem.”

“Well, has anyone tried it yet?” Dean said.

“I haven’t,” Sam said.

John sighed loudly. “Suppose we could give it a go.”

John closed his eyes again and focused his thoughts into another prayer. “Castiel, you’ve got an alie—”

Before the words could finish forming in his consciousness, a wet, rough vine wrapped around John’s ankle and yanked him off his feet. He smacked down into the linoleum with enough force that he should have been unconsciousness a second time over, but instead his whole body smarted. 

The vine was coming from a room that had been previously shut. Now the door yawned open wide. Darkness stretched beyond. As John stared in horror, a second vine lashed out and latched around his leg.

“John!” Sam shouted. Both he and Dean reached for John’s hands.

They pulled, but the vines pulled harder. Dean let go of John’s hands and ran down to the vine so that he could saw at one with the First Blade.

Another vine lashed out from the room and smacked Dean back against the wall.

Sam’s grip slipped the barest fraction and a panic seized John’s mind. He clawed upwards and held onto Sam as hard as he could, but the vines squeezed and tugged.

A dark haired woman with black eyes appeared behind Sam. She smiled broad and wide at John. “Oh, Sam!”

Sam glanced over his shoulder. “Ruby?”

The distraction was exactly what the vines needed to loosen Sam’s grip enough that John flew out of his hands. He smacked into the floor again and then the vines were pulling him through the door.

The darkness lasted only a second. Branches, bushes, and rocks scratched at his face, his arms, and his clothes. He was run through mud and bits of water. He twisted—his stomach bearing the brunt of his pain for the mistake—and grabbed at anything he could get his hands on. Nothing lasted between his fingers long enough to stop the relentless pull of the vines.

Abruptly, the vines released him in a shallow pool of mucky water. John took in ragged long breaths, wondering how much shouting and screaming he might’ve done in the last few minutes, and shakily got up on his hands and knees. 

Things slithered out in the night. John could hear the snakes and other things crawling through the bushes. He batted away a mosquito with an annoyed groan. “That level of detail, eh?” he muttered to himself.

“Everything is important,” Zed said.

John glanced up. Zed stood a few feet away on top of a half-rotten log. Her long hair was curled and messed bigger than usual, but her white mental hospital garb seemed unmarred by the swamp around her. 

“I told you to stay out!”

“Who says I’m here?” she said as she cocked her head to the side.

“You best not be playing with me,” John muttered.

Zed smiled at him. “What else do you think I do with you? We’re playing the best game there is.”

John stood up slowly. “Yeah? What’s that?”

“How long until you get me killed,” Zed purred. She batted those big eyelashes at him. “How have I been doing so far? I think I’m winning against you.”

“You can’t even win against a game like that,” John grumbled. “’Sides, you’re not here. Less real than your counterpart.”

“Maybe this is where I really am, John.”

“You’re trying to play with my head.”

“I’m learning from the best on how to do that.” Zed hopped down from the log and while the splash she created struck John with more mud, none appeared on her own outfit. 

“So you’ve been conjured up. That means you’ve got some role to play in all this. Thing is, Castiel doesn’t know you.”

“We’ve met.”

“Not enough to make a lasting impression.”

Zed smirked. “Oh, he noticed. Anyone who likes women tends to.”

“He’s not a person, love. He’s an Angel.”

“So he can notice you but not me?” Zed said. “He has human needs, however angelic that stolen Grace makes him.”

“All right then. What role do you play for Castiel?” John asked as he shoved his hands in his pockets.

Zed rolled her eyes. “You caught me, John. I’m not here because of him. I’m here because of you.”

“Then what do you represent to me?” John said.

“Desire,” Zed replied.

John laughed brazenly. “You’ve got that wrong.”

Zed stepped closer. “You assumed I meant sexual desire.” She bit her bottom lip and looked up at John through dark lashes. “What does that say about you?”

“What else could you be?”

“I’m unknown and if there’s anything you love more than your self-loathing, it’s a mystery. Even better, you don’t know if I’m a boon or if I’ll curse you further.” Zed leaned up, her hands clutching in his shirt, and whispered. “Though if you want the other, I’m happy to comply.”

John pushed her back firmly. “No thanks.”

“Do you feel it yet?” Zed asked.

“What?”

Zed grinned and laced her hands into John’s hair. “You got its attention.” She closed her eyes and moaned. “You taste so good, Constantine.”

This time John shoved her. “Keep your hands off me!”

She should have fallen into the muddy water, but as the projection fell, she disappeared into the air.

John leaned against a nearby tree and panted. Sweat and water mingled over his skin while his clothes stuck to him because of the mud. After he took a few more deep breaths in, he pushed off. The vines had dragged him in a straight line, so all he need do is go back the way he came, or so the logic went. 

John stumbled through the swamp back towards the door. Every once in a while, the ground would betray him. He’d step into a hole or a puddle of water that he could’ve sworn wasn’t there when he began to put his foot down. Probably hadn’t been, considering the nature of this place.

Hours passed, or maybe only agonizing long minutes, and John saw no signs of the Ravenscar door he’d been dragged through. The swamp was endless in all directions. What was he even trying to go back for? The Winchesters? They hadn’t been the best of allies so far.

“You can tell because they’re still alive,” came Gaz’s voice from behind.

John closed his eyes and shook his head. “Don’t be standing there, mate.”

“Because you let me die?”

“You’re not real.”

“Am so. And it’s not just me.”

“I can’t have you messing with me right now. Save it for my own nightmares.”

“Don’t you know, John? That’s where we are. Squarely back in your head. It’s your turn to be fed upon.”

John almost turned around at that point, but stopped in time. He didn’t need to see whatever Gaz had been conjured up to look like. “What do you mean?”

“This nightmare’s been made real. Starring you.”

“The alien,” John muttered. He cleared his throat and said louder, “Has it moved onto me then? Left him alone?”

“No. Castiel still sleeps. The alien is hungry. It wants to feed and you taste so good.”

“Second time I’ve heard that. Still not believing it.” 

“Good. Gives a kind of rush every time you think shit about yourself. Not that you don’t deserve the crap you pile on your head. How many terrible things did you pull us into, John? Even before what happened in Newcastle, you were always convincing us to risk our lives, our sanity, for a few brilliant adrenaline filled moments. Why’d you lead us into that, John? We’d’ve done anything you ask. We did. Look what happened to me.”

“’S not my fault!” John shouted.

“Even you don’t believe that.”

John gritted his teeth. Not looking at his accuser was rough business, but John wouldn’t give the alien the satisfaction of increasing his misery—though he had to ignore the voice in his consciousness calling him coward.

“You can’t lie to yourself in here. Isn’t that why you wanted Zed to stay out? Afraid that she’d see you were really the biggest monster inside your own head.”

“You could be telling the truth, mate, but those are problems for another day.”

Gaz snorted. “Right. Got to find the Angel. How much use do you think you’ll be to him?”

“He’s the key to all this. That’s all that matters.”

“Go on and tell yourself that. You can’t fool anyone in here. Everything is truth.”

“Truth? Hardly,” John muttered. He started pushing his way onward through the swamp.

“What are you going to do when you find him? Tell him to just end it all? Convince him he’s only dreaming? Angels don’t dream. He won’t believe a liar like you,” Gaz said.

John shrugged off the comment. His own personal ghost was going to continue haunting him through the swamp so the only thing he could do was tune the bugger out. 

Not that that would stop Gary from talking. “You don’t even know where to find him. You’ve got a useless sense of direction in here. You’ve been walking in circles.”

“No I haven’t,” John said.

“You can’t even tell? That’s even worse.”

“You’re just trying to put me off the right trail.”

“I don’t need to. You’re not following any trail, just your own sense of judgment and we both know how flawed that really is, don’t we?”

Stalking through the swamp, John fought to keep his balance. He’d been putting too much weight down, so when the ground slid away underneath him, he fell face forward into the mud.

When he managed to drag himself back out of it for the second time, Gary Lester, thin and wasted down to the bones, was hunched down before his eyes. “’Nother bad move, John.”

“Sod off,” John muttered.

“I thought you would’ve given up by now,” a woman’s voice called out into the night.

An unfamiliar woman’s voice. John glanced around and saw a dark-haired woman standing in the mud not far from him. She wore a leather jacket and had the kind of smile that made John think of properly flirting with her. A sort of subtle wickedness in her smile and in her stance would lead someone to do all kinds of naughty things. 

“I got close enough to someone else then?” John said as he pulled himself up. “You’re not out of my head.”

“I’m Meg.”

“Pleasure,” John said. “Any chance you can kick this tosser?”

“That’s all on you. He’s part of your nightmares.”

“Going to banish me again?” Gaz asked. “Wasn’t once in a lifetime enough? You’ve got to get rid of me? Haven’t you hurt me enough, John?”

“Shut up,” John replied. He spun and water sloshed around him.

Gary was back to looking like his old self again, at least the man before he was strung out on heroine constantly. He had a pleading look in his eyes. “Please, John. Don’t banish me. You know where I’ve really gone. You can get me out this way.”

“He’s burning for what he did, John. If he’d repented, he could have gone to Heaven, but he made poor choices. It’s not your fault he’s burning,” Meg said. A smugness in her voice kept any comfort from the words. “We don’t have forever here, Johnny-boy.”

“Don’t call me that,” John said.

“All right, sweetheart.”

“Be careful, love,” Gaz called out. “He’s likely to get you damned.”

“Oh, I’m already there,” Meg replied.

John glanced over his shoulder.

Meg had black eyes.

“Whose head are you out of?” John demanded.

“I’m in all of theirs. Sam, Dean, and Clarence.”

John snorted. “Clarence?”

“Demons aren’t allowed a sense of humor?” Meg teased.

“Just wish you weren’t another demon.”

“You’re dealing with an Angel’s mind, what did you think you’d find in here? Puppies and sunshine?” Meg smirked. “I’m sure we can find some in here if that’s your thing, but I thought you wanted to help Clarence.”

“I’m sure the sun shines hot as a star and the puppies belong to hellhounds,” John replied. “You’re right to keep me on task.”

Gaz was standing there still. “You can’t go. You’ve got to stay here with us.”

Hands reached up from the mud and clutched at John’s legs. They grabbed at his pants legs and scratched at him as he tried to dodge them. He jumped onto a nearby log, only to fall off and land on his back in the mud. 

Gary stood on one side. Meg on the other. 

“Help me!” John shouted.

“I can’t,” Meg replied. “I’m only a guide.”

“You won’t have anything to guide if I’m dead.”

Meg shrugged. “Not my problem, eye candy.”

John scowled at her and yanked his arms away from the hands. He had to fight against them and he gained little ground. “Gaz, call them off.”

“I can’t, John. You’ve got your punishments coming to you. This is something of your own making. You’ve made your bed. You’ve got to be the one to lie in it. I won’t do it for you this time.”

“You didn’t do it for me the last!” John screamed. “You took it out of that boy, not me. I did what had to be done and I’d rather be more damned than let that thing loose on the world. I only offered you the choice, Gaz. You could’ve said no.”

“But I would have done anything to make you proud, John. One last time.”

“Aye, maybe. It’s not my bloody fault you turned me into a hero! I didn’t ask you to!” John gritted his teeth. “So leave me alone!”

The hands sunk away into the mud. Gary’s projection disappeared. 

John had to pull himself out of the mud another time. His clothes were more the brown of the earth than the hospital white. Tiny scratches ached all over his body and he wondered if they had appeared on his actual flesh. Suddenly, the wound that projection-Dean had given him ached and bled.

“You probably shouldn’t have thought about that,” Meg said with a raised eyebrow as she looked at his wound. “You’re going to wind up catching something worse than an alien.”

“I’ll worry ‘bout it later,” John groaned. He put a hand over the wound and tried to will it to stop bleeding. The pain dulled out which was a fine enough trade-off. “Which way do we need to go?”

“Gotta admit, our first priority isn’t the Angel. Where he is, you’re going to need help.” Meg headed off into the swamp. “So our first step is to find the boys.”

“The Winchesters? Not sure they’re much actual help.”

“I know Dean has the Blade and is in touch with his dark side—believe me, that makes my spine tingle in the not-so-fun way—but he’s powerful. Besides the alien and Castiel, he may be the fourth most powerful thing in here.”

“I certainly don’t rank before him,” John said. “Neither does Sam. What else is in here? Jack?”

“Lover boy is sitting dutifully next to Castiel’s bedside. He hasn’t shut up in three days, hasn’t left his side.”

“That’s incredibly useful,” John complained.

“He’s been doing his part, providing a litany of love pouring into this tired old mind,” Meg said. She stepped through a serpent, though John had to kick the same beast away. “Do you have any idea how helpful it can be to hear those simple words over and over? ‘I love you.’ ‘Don’t leave me.’”

“Wouldn’t have a clue,” John muttered.

“At least you’re not unhealthy with it,” Meg said. “To the Winchesters, those same words can cause quite a problem.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Meg shrugged. “I’m just a figment. It’s not my place to understand. It’s mine to guide.”

John sloshed through another puddle to keep up with her. “So Jack’s the other powerful force?”

“I didn’t say that.” Meg turned behind a tree and reached forward. A doorknob appeared in her hand. When she dragged the door open, the white halls of Ravenscar appeared beyond the opening.

“Well is he?”

“Maybe that Zed has a point. You like searching for the answers.”

“If you’re going to be cheeky about everything, then what’s the point of conversing?”

“I like you Brits,” Meg said as she led him through the doorway. “You use fun words like ‘cheeky.’ Those American boys tend to degrade into calling everything a ‘bitch.’ So boring.”

John made sure the door shut tight behind them. “Glad I could amuse.”

Meg’s boots thudded against the tiles. She strode with confidence while John hurried after her. “We’ve lost more time than I thought.”

“You going to tell me who else is in here?”

“Don’t think I will, eye candy,” Meg said.

“Not sure I like this new name any better.”

“That’s a shame. I think I like it a lot more." Meg glanced back at him with a broad smile. "Let’s go find those boys.”


	5. Chapter 5

After a long trek through Ravenscar’s oddly pristine white halls, Meg opened a hospital door, but instead of an institutional room, a stunning library lay beyond. Bright light gleamed from the mahogany tables and John felt almost guilty for tracking his filthy shoes across the spotless floor. Something about the room’s design seemed familiar. John was pretty sure he’d come across a picture of a place like this in one of Jasper’s odd files. A couple of smiling men had been sitting at one of the tables and the attached report said something about finding their bodies. 

Sam sat at the far end of one of the tables. Somewhere along the line, he’d gotten to wear normal clothes again. 

Meg leaned against the doorframe with her arms crossed over her chest.

“Aren’t you coming with?” John asked her and nodded at Sam.

“Not the recruiter, just the guide,” Meg said. “Getting his head back in the game is all on you.”

“Great.” John walked quickly over to Sam. “Come on, mate, let’s get moving.”

When Sam didn’t respond, John slowed his pace. Despite the volume of John’s voice, Sam acted as if he hadn’t heard him at all. Instead, he kept rubbing his fingers against an old scar on the opposite palm and taking long deep breaths.

John dragged out a chair in such a way as to face Sam before plopping down into it. “Listen to me, Sam. Hear the sound of my voice. Pay attention to the words I’m telling you. Sam, the only way we’re going to get through this is if you snap out of your own head.”

“Do you see him?” Sam asked. He was still staring straight out ahead.

“No, mate. Is that part of your nightmares or something that happens on a more regular occurrence?”

“I hallucinated, but I haven’t for a long time,” Sam said.

“You’re not now. You’re still in dreamscape. I think the alien’s infecting us through this connection it has to Castiel. It’s trying to reel us in now that we’ve made a change.”

“What change?”

“I prayed and he responded by making that projection disappear.” John waved a hand at the waiting Meg. “He’s even sent a guide. This is showing that he’s still paying enough attention, mate. It’s a sign that we’ve got a chance to end this thing.”

Sam glanced the way John pointed. “She’s a liar.”

“She led me to you.”

Sam’s eyes flicked back over to the empty space.

“We are in your dreamscape. This is your mind. If you can’t banish this hallucination, you best make it so that I can see it too. We are stronger together. Don’t suffer alone.”

“You know, Sam, he makes a lot of sense,” another male voice said.

As subtle as he could manage, John glanced over to the now-apparent man half-sitting on the table. The man looked half dead, but a vessel breaking apart at the seams would have those sores, as if the skin was shredding because of the weight of the power kept within. Typically the problem of an angelic vessel chosen poorly, John had glimpsed it once in person before in a case of demonic possession. 

John exerted that small piece of will, mostly to see if he still had any control whatsoever, and reached into one his pockets for a packet of cigarettes and a lighter. He managed to tug out the mostly crumpled pack he’d called up before and the same silver lighter. “All right, mate, who’re you supposed to be then?”

The man waved a single finger at John. “We’ve got to play by your rules, John. We shouldn’t say my name. You don’t want to get my attention in here.”

“I take it you’re not the other one then?” John said.

The man smiled. “I’m not. But I’d outweigh number one through three in a heartbeat.”

“Other what?” Sam asked. 

John lit the cigarette and took a slow drag. “Meg over there says that there’s someone besides us and the alien in this nightmare, someone with a bit more power than us. She won’t let on, but your friend here’s got to have some connection beyond your mind. He knew what I was talking about before you.”

The man tapped his nose. “You know, torturing the smart and guilty ones is always so much more fun. It allows me to get inventive because you guys go mad from the subtle details. I’m going to have fun with you, John Constantine, once you’re mine. I’ve got a special place set up for you.”

“Cas took him out of my head,” Sam said. “Maybe I need to take him back in.”

“Don’t think that for a second,” John replied.

“Maybe it’s what’s keeping Cas stuck in this nightmare. If I take my madness back, it won’t be damaging him anymore.”

“Castiel is being kept here by an alien who very obviously felt threatened by our mere presence not too long ago because it separated us.” John stood up from his seat and leaned in on the table as he continued talking to Sam. “Now, an Angel of the Lord brought us into his head to save his ass. Are you going to sit here and listen to whatever this asshole has to say about you, or are you going to prove that Castiel was right to put faith in you?”

Sam stayed in his seat and rubbed his hand over and over.

“Rousing speech, John,” the blonde man said.

“Any reason you’re not moving, Sam?” John asked.

“Oh, because I told him you were on your way to say just that,” the man said. He winked at John. “Great performance, but I think it could be better. Dean likes to get a little gruffer in the vocal chords these days in his motivational speeches. Wanna run the lines again?”

Sam slid down in his seat like an embarrassed school child. “He said if I was getting so bored, he might as well make someone else show up.”

“But me? Why hallucinate me?”

“He says you’re not real.”

“You have visions of random Englishmen who’ve slept with your friends?”

Sam scoffed and shook his head. With guilt plain in his eyes, he finally met John’s eyes. “He says I’ve created you entirely.”

“Even better, you create men covered in mud and filth.”

The man cleared his throat and pointed at John’s clothes. “That’s not how he’s been seeing you.”

“Oh? And how is he?”

John’s clothes shifted to a clean set of his usual attire and he rolled his eyes as a response. “We are seriously going to have to talk to Castiel about relying upon madmen to help with his psyche.”

“A sane mind would have shattered completely,” Meg said from the door. “A little instability is just what the doctor ordered in here.”

“Fair point, love,” John said. He patted Sam on the shoulder. “Let’s get moving.”

Still, Sam didn’t move.

“We don’t have all day.”

Sam wouldn’t even look his way now.

John slammed his hand on the table between them so hard that Sam jumped in his seat from the sudden noise. While John’s hand smarted like mad, he focused his pain, exhaustion, and weariness into his voice. “Look, we do not have time for this. I get that seeing this hallucination is unsettling. I get that it messes your head so that it feels like you’re stripped of control, but that’s why the alien chose this madness to unleash. It saw into your head and pulled the string. Are you going to sit here and be this thing’s puppet, or are you going to get up and help me save Castiel?”

“Wow, I’m feeling all inspired,” the other man said. “You know, Sam, I never would have thought that an alcoholic, damned exorcist would make such a great motivational speaker.”

“I’m going to start ignoring him now,” John said. “Take back that control and join me and Meg to go find Castiel.”

“Sam’s not going anywhere,” the man said.

“Piss off already,” John replied.

“Watch your tone with me, young man.”

Sam winced.

“Castiel won’t hold out forever. Neither will we, mate.”

“Except this little game of ours is for eternity,” the man said. “You’re mine, Sam. Forever and ever.”

“I’m not ready to lay down and die yet.” John cocked his head at the hallucination. “Are you going to let a voice in your head win?”

Sam rubbed at the old scar.

“Castiel chose you for a reason.”

The other man laughed.

John hung his head. Nothing he had said had brought Sam’s attention away from the figment of his mind. Up against a stranger’s psychosis, John was running out of ideas. Maybe if he had a better idea of who Sam was, he could find that magical combination of words that would push Sam into action. They didn’t have a lot of time and they still had to find Dean. If John didn’t get Sam—

Dean.

“Your brother’s out there, loose in Castiel’s mind,” John said as he rose his eyes once again. “He’s giving into his darker nature, and you can bet the alien is enjoying every psychic wound he’s inflicting.”

“It’s not real,” the man said. “The whole dreamscape is a lie.”

“Even if you’re the one dreaming all of this, and you’re not, then there’s a reason you’re on this quest. You have to help me save Castiel.”

A young blonde woman with a bleeding wound across her stomach appeared next to Sam. She bent down and kissed his cheek and wrapped her arms around his neck. “You’re tired, baby. Just get some sleep.”

Somehow, this woman’s presence caused Sam to tear up. He bit at his inner cheek and took long shaky breaths. 

“The alien is feeding off this,” John said. “If you don’t fight this, you’ll die.”

The blonde man shrugged. “You’re still dead already.”

“Without you, there is no redemption for Dean,” John argued. “No saving Castiel. If your ass stays in that seat any longer, they’re both doomed. Me as well.”

“Dean’s already a demon,” the man said. “Cas is dying.”

“They don’t have to be that way.”

For the first time, Sam glanced up to meet John’s gaze. 

“The Men of Letter’s ‘cure’ is a hoax. I can’t deny that, but there’s far more to Heaven and Hell and everything in between than either of us has ever scratched at. If you believe you can save your brother’s soul, genuinely believe it with your whole being, I will help you find a way,” John promised. “But we can’t do it from in here.”

“You think Dean still has a chance?”

“Only if you get moving. If you stay here, his humanity is going to be gone forever.”

“You know he’s not real, Sam.”

“Shut up,” Sam finally snapped at the man.

John patted Sam’s shoulder again. “There we go.”

Sam rose slowly.

The woman frowned and grabbed Sam’s hand. “Baby, don’t go.”

“Jess, I’m sorry,” Sam said, “but it’s been almost a decade. A lot’s happened since I lost you.”

“You’re tired,” she said.

“And you’re dead.” Sam pushed past her and John was quick to follow now that they were making progress towards the door. 

“You’re still mine, Sam,” the man called out.

“Then I guess I’ll see you later,” Sam said loudly.

“Makes me all warm inside that you two are finally together,” Meg said as they reached the door. “If you’d taken any longer coming, I was going to have to declare you a lost cause.”

John shoved his hands in his pockets and walked through the door. “Sam’s fault.”

“I was there, eye candy, I know.”

“Eye candy?” Sam said. 

“She has an odd sense of humor,” John replied.

“Except she’s just a conglomeration of thoughts and beliefs. Someone else is thinking that she would call you that.” Sam stepped through the door and back into the Ravenscar hallway. He stumbled for a second and shook his head.

“You all right?” John asked.

“You were already kicking the alien when we left your dreamscape,” Meg said as she came through last. She shut the door and tested the door handle afterwards. “Sam was deep under its control.”

Sam had a hand up against his temple. “Wow. I guess that was hitting me harder than I thought.”

John let out a long breath. “Honestly, some of the best news I’ve heard in a while. You’re good to go now?”

“Yeah. Let’s find Cas—tiel and get out of here,” Sam said.

“Big brother first,” Meg told them. She headed down the halls ahead of them. “Dean-o is causing a mess. We’ve got to get to him before someone else does.”

“Who else is in here?” Sam asked.

“Uh-uh. I can’t tell you that,” Meg replied.

John took a few steps slower in order to let Meg get a bigger lead. Sam frowned when he saw John drop back, but he followed along. Quieting his voice, John said, “Why’d he send us a demon as a guide?”

“His history with Meg’s a little, uh weird is a word for it. When he was in the hospital, she looked after him and they got close. Really close. I think they could’ve been an item if she hadn’t died.”

“An Angel and a demon knocking boots?” John said.

“Yeah.”

“You boys don’t just play with fire, you grab the lighter fluid.”

Sam laughed.

Meg looked over her shoulder at them. “If you boys are done having fun, we should hurry up.”

“Lead the way, fair demon,” John called back as they picked up their pace.  
************* 

A cacophony of pained groans, enraged shrieks, and wet thick slices through flesh echoed off the walls on the first floor. Though Meg had hurried them down from the third floor to the first, she motioned at Sam and John to slow their steps and to halt before they turned that last corner. She edged to the end first and quickly leaned out for a look before pressing back against the wall. “Dean has really lost it, hasn’t he?”

Sam swallowed.

“Using the blade again?” John asked.

“Like it’s his favorite toy in the whole wide world,” Meg said.

“At some point, I’d like to know how he wound up with both Blade and Mark,” John said. “I’m assuming he’s had both in the real world at some point.”

“Yeah,” Sam said quietly. 

“Story time later, boys.” Meg nodded at the hall. “Who’s going to see about approaching our lord of darkness and massacre first?”

“I’ll go,” Sam said. He took in a deep breath and then walked around the corner.

John took up a spot near to Meg so he could glance around and see what was happening.

First Blade well in hand, Dean sliced through another hellbeast before moving in a fluid motion to slice open a more human victim. Three more humans attempted to fight him, but he cut and slaughtered each one in quick, efficient moves. Perhaps far scarier than a sloppy killer was the one with the bloodlust and the control to thoroughly enjoy the work.

“Dean!” Sam called out. He was walking cautious down the hall.

Dean slit the throat of the last of the attackers and immediately spun towards Sam. Blood fell off the Blade. A sadistic smile curled Dean’s lips and even from the end of the hall, John could see that his eyes had gone black again.

“I failed him,” Meg whispered hoarsely. Too rough and low to be the same voice she had spoken with.

John snapped his attention back to the woman beside him. While her eyes were black now too, something was different in her expression. All the merry teasing had fled. “Castiel?”

Meg’s eyes searched the walls of the hall for a second. She raised her gaze up to John’s face. For a second there, they shined bright blue as if with a Grace all their own. “I pulled him out of Hell. His soul was my responsibility and I failed him.”

“Free will, love,” John said sincerely. He reached over and cupped her face. “Can’t save us from ourselves.”

“Sammy.” Dean’s voice carried down the hall. “Been looking for you.”

“Here I am. And we still got a job to do.”

“We going to find that asshole first?”

Meg’s eyes became black again and whatever small trace of Castiel’s consciousness had infused her fled at hearing Dean’s voice call for John.

Yet that brief moment had given John far more hope. If Castiel could swoop in and talk through one of his many avatars, than he wasn’t too far gone yet.

“Asshole is already here,” John said as he stepped out into the hallway.

Meg followed him.

Dean pointed at her with the First Blade. “What is she doing here?”

“Cas sent her to us,” Sam said. “She’s how we found each other.”

“Course it was her,” Dean complained. “Where the hell have you two been?”

“The alien was trying to feed from us,” John explained. He walked slowly down the hall towards Sam and Dean. “So it separated us to make it easier.”

“Can we find it and kill the damn thing already?” Dean asked.

“Doesn’t work like that,” Meg replied. “It’s made from pure psychic energy. Much harder to find and far more resistant to attacks, even from your blade, Dean.”

“Then how do we save Cas?” Sam said.

“We get it to stop feeding.” John shoved his hands in his pockets and rooted around, but found nothing of use in them this time. He had hoped for a bit of chalk so he could attempt a quick shield spell, but no such luck. “Only way out of this that I see. Get Castiel to see this for what it is and get him to kick it.”

“Do you think he can?”

John glanced at Meg in the corner of his eye. “I think we’ve got a chance at it, but only if we keep moving and stay together.”

“Hey, not our fault you got pulled away by some kind of swamp thing.”

“That wasn’t the Swamp Thing,” John said. “Him I know.”

Meg smirked. “I really like your sense of humor. You’re far more fun than these two have been lately.”

Dean tightened his grip on the First Blade. “You sure we need her?”

“You know, I would have left you behind,” Meg said. She picked her way across the body-strewn hallway and walked past Dean. “But they are going to need you, especially John.” 

“Why is that?” John asked as he followed. 

“The alien inside Clarence’s head is conjuring up all kinds of things. Some of them are extremely lethal, and you’re pretty and smart, eye candy, but sometimes you have a habit of getting your ass kicked.” 

Dean snorted.

“I doubt you took on the Mark of Cain for the fun of it,” John snapped. “Something beat you too.”

“Yeah, a Knight of Hell. Bet a clown could kick your ass,” Dean teased.

A high-pitched laugh echoed off the walls. John shivered and Sam went surprisingly rigid.

With a loud sigh, Dean said, “Really Sam?”

“Hey, you brought it up, not me,” Sam said.

“Relax, boys. Evil clown isn’t going to have time to catch up to you.” Meg came to a halt in front of a door. “We’re here.”

“You’re not coming with us?” Sam asked.

“Brother wouldn’t like it if I got an closer,” she replied.

“You don’t have a brother,” Dean grumbled.

“Not hers,” John said. “Castiel’s.”

“You might actually be as smart as you pretend,” Meg teased.

Another evil laugh bounced off the walls.

“Let’s go before that catches up to us.” Sam leaned forward and opened the door.

The world beyond the door was a forest. A light mist clung to the ground and even the trees managed to share some dim gray quality. Dark gray storm clouds rolled and rumbled overhead. 

“How are we supposed to find him in this?” John asked.

“Me,” Dean said. He walked through the door and the First Blade shifted to a crude shaped metal and wood weapon. As he hefted the blade, Dean shrugged. “Least it makes sense.”

Sam followed next and as soon as his feet hit the dirt, a shotgun appeared in his hands.

When John walked through, all he got was his bloody trench coat on around him. “This doesn’t seem fair.”

Dean laughed. 

“Be careful, boys,” Meg said. She glanced up at the door and it closed on its own.

Thunder rolled overhead so loud and strong John’s teeth reverberated from the vibration. Heavy drops of water splashed against the shoulders of his coat and around him. A crack of lightning came down through a tree not far from them. “Storm’s breaking,” John said.

“Come on,” Dean said. “And tell me if you see something.”

“Something?” John echoed.

“We’re in Purgatory, also known as monster heaven,” Dean replied. “Considering the way this has been going, I doubt we’re going to find it empty.”

Even as Dean said the words, John could see the bright eyes of a beast lurking in a bush near Sam. The taller Winchester saw it at the same time and let the shotgun roar. Without missing a beat, Sam pumped another round into the chamber of the gun and shot again into the bush on his other side. A creature fell to the ground.

“Let’s get moving,” Dean said. “Try and keep up.”

Dean took off down a path with a sort of predator’s sprint—the kind of animal gait reserved for well-known hunting territory. Sam easily kept up with his long legs.

After one big last deep breath, John headed after them.

And the skies opened and poured down on them.


	6. Chapter 6

Strange thing about time in a dreamscape, John couldn’t keep track of it to save his life. They could’ve spent minutes running through the pouring rain or it could’ve been hours, but John had the strange sensation that this had been eternity all on its own. Dean moved with almost unnatural grace and cleaved at foes that John couldn’t hope to spot along the dark, muddy trail. His footing was sure and confident and every gesture made with clean efficiency.

John fell into the mud face first as they went around the first curve. A few seconds—or eternities—later, he lost his footing a second time and crashed into a tree. Dean grabbed his arm to help him up only to have to shove him against the tree to get him out of the way of another beast. Neither man made a remark. Instead, John let Dean go on tearing apart any nasty thing that wanted to end his life and John focused his attention on running through the woods best he could. Not that that was very well.

They fell into that driving need to move on through the forest and time spun on. Rain soaked through their clothes to the bone and wind chilled John at the least, but they paused for nothing. 

The path broke off into a clearing. As all three of them rushed into it, the rain ceased. John collapsed to his knees near the middle of the opening—more because he’d tripped over his own feet again—and Sam came to a halt beside him. Both panted loudly.

Dean came to a stop as well, but he was still managing to breathe normal like and he kept an eye on the perimeter of the clearing. “He should be close.”

“Best news I’ve heard all day,” John muttered. He went to push himself up, but his body—or rather consciousness—had decided that he needed a moment longer.

Suddenly, Dean twisted towards the path on the other side of the clearing and tensed his body in a fighting stance. “You two feel that?”

“What?” Sam panted, though he straightened and prepped the shotgun again.

John clutched at the grass and closed his eyes a second. His own breathing was too loud to hear much of anything, yet the hairs on the back of his neck had no problem spiking. A small, electric buzz to the air, like too much static building. Either a lightning bolt was about to ride through him, or something else was with them. As John pushed up to stand, he said, “Ease off.”

Dean only gripped the blade tighter.

In a louder voice, John called out, “Show yourself, mate. You’re spooking the Winchesters.”

“They should be terrified,” Manny shouted—though shout seemed the wrong phrase. More like the authority in his voice made it loud enough to carry over the distance despite the occasional rumble of background thunder. He stepped out from behind the tree line at the far side of the clearing. 

Fully clad in armor, burning longsword in his right hand, and his white wings fluffed out, Manny was a terrifying picture for an enemy. Somehow, seeing Manny dressed for battle actually relieved John.

“You, you’re the other one in here,” John said.

“I am.”

“Who the hell are you?” Dean demanded.

“All you need to know is that I’m a Servant of Heaven, Knight,” Manny replied. When he called Dean that title, he puffed his wings a fraction. His holy sword burned a little brighter.

John took a couple of steps left to get out of the direct line between them.

The blade in Dean’s hand shifted back into the First Blade and the red glow from the Mark flared up. 

“Dean, what are you doing?” Sam reached out to touch Dean’s left arm. “That’s an Angel.”

“Because we can trust those assholes?” Dean snapped.

“Your lack of faith in Heaven is what brought my brother down in the first place, Winchester,” Manny said. As angry as John had heard Manny get, the Angel had never had that level of righteous wrath in his voice before. His amber eyes brightened and a small electric whine burned at the air.

Dean jerked his arm away from Sam’s touch. A low, throaty growl issued from him as his eyes darkened to a ruby black. 

Standing close to the middle distance between them, John had to gasp for air past the power pushing at each other. Thunder cracked directly over the spot.

These two were getting ready to rip each other to shreds.

And of course John had a stupid idea. 

“Stop!” He stepped onto that direct line between them, centering himself on it, and put a hand out towards both of them. He was tall enough to break their eye contact and he glanced to either one to see that he had their attention. “You can’t do this here.”

“We are not in the mortal realm, John. The rules are different. I can act. I can end the threat of Cain here and now,” Manny orated. 

“You and I both know that the Mark of Cain has to walk the Earth for eternity. You kill him and you risk bringing down your Father’s wrath,” John said. “I, for one, would not like to be present for that kind of repercussion.”

Dean spun the First Blade in his hand.

“Doesn’t mean you get a free pass,” John shouted as he turned his attention. “You take out Castiel’s brother and you’ll shatter what little sanity he has left. He’s already confessed that he believes he’s failed you. We’re on a broken ledge, mate. You murder his brother and the guilt will shove all of us over, which means your brother’ll be a dead man too. So both of you, stand down!”

Though neither being moved, the electric tension in the air dropped and the pressure against John’s skin eased. 

“Look at you, finally finding a backbone,” Dean said with a wicked grin across his lips. 

John looked back to Manny. “You going to help us find Castiel?”

“No.”

“Why not?” John demanded.

Manny pointed at John with the sword. “You can go.” He drifted the sword point towards the Winchesters. “They can’t.”

“Why?” Sam said.

“John’s connection to him is fresh and nearly painless. I have seen my brother’s nightmares. You two are the source of too much psychic trauma. You can’t end this madness.” Manny dropped his arm back into a ready stance. “All you can do is deepen his pain and I won’t allow that.”

“You son of a bitch,” Dean roared.

Before the anger of both beings could flare up into a choking hold on the air, Sam put his arm across Dean’s chest. He took in big swallow and said, “No, he’s right.”

“What?” Dean snapped.

“We’ve got a long history with him and not all of it’s good. We should let John try first.”

“That asshole?”

“This asshole is your best chance,” John said.

“You don’t even know him!” Dean said. “You think a one-night shag is supposed to mean something? You can’t mean anything to him.”

“You don’t speak for my brother,” Manny said.

Dean pointed the First Blade at Manny. “I swear to G—”

Twin thunder rolls erupted so loud and hard that the ground shook. John and Sam both fell to the ground and even Dean wound up dropping to a knee. 

“What the h—” Dean began.

Sam cut in. “Maybe we should stop with the swearing, Dean.”

Dean glared at his brother, but kept his mouth shut.

John pushed back up to his feet.

The clouds overhead darkened and rolled at impossible speeds. The forest became that measure darker, though somehow John could still see perfectly through the murk. 

“He’s reaching his breaking point,” Manny called out. “I can feel it, John.”

“I’m going,” John shouted, finding that for some reason he needed to scream in order to be heard now. He turned towards Sam. “Look, there’s a friend of mine you should call if we all make it out of this.” He shouted Chas’s number out. “Got that?”

Sam nodded.

A hellbeast came running up the path they’d followed to the clearing. Dean cleaved it with the First Blade. More creatures were coming up the path.

Without a sound, Manny was suddenly beside John while the beasts and creatures rushed the Winchesters. “We will hold the perimeter. You have to reach him.”

“You and the Knight won’t kill each other while I’m gone?” John asked. “You’ll fight side by side?”

Manny glared down at John in one of those seconds that felt eternal. “For whatever reason, my brother’s mind has strayed onto this path. Hell and Heaven blend together.”

“Perhaps he’s just found his humanity,” John joked with the kind of grin of the gallows humor.

“I fear he’s only found pieces of it,” Manny said. 

The eternal second was over and Manny was swinging his sword not to far from Dean, but not at Dean.

John had another path through the woods to take. No surprise that he had to go it alone.

That’s how his nightmares usually wound up.


	7. Chapter 7

The path took an uphill turn and gradually steepened. Nothing ‘bout that would have made it too hard, except the storm had come back. Lightning cracked through trees not far from the path, thunder shook the ground, rain slicked the path, and a howling wind threatened to knock John’s barely held balance completely down. The hike became a climb through darkness.

John ached from weariness and exertion. He wasn’t sure if time even moved in order in this place as the clouds overhead seemed to wind forward and back, the rain even playing hell by going up instead of down at a point. None of that was his concern. He needed to get to the Angel at the center of all this, and that meant following this narrow path through the woods, no matter how endless it seemed.

He should just give up, or at least rest a while.

“I’m not so easy,” John shouted towards the sky. “You hear me, alien? You can play much as you like, but I won’t let you drag me down! A few stray thoughts aren’t enough to conquer me!”

Astra’s high and piteous voice called out from behind him. Begging for him, for John’s help, for anyone’s help, it echoed through the forest.

John shook his head and forced his feet forward. To look behind now would be to suffer more in the end, to not face death but fall victim to it. As he shoved onwards towards the top of the hill, more voices joined Astra’s. The wind brutalized him and dragged his feet out from underneath him. Determined that this time, for once in his miserable life, he wouldn’t fail, he ground his teeth together and clawed his way up on hands and knees. Bits of branch and bushes scratched at his hands and face, tore into his pant legs, but John bore the tiny wounds. This wasn’t his flesh, and his mind had taken far worse.

At long last, he could see a break in the woods, see the top of the hill. The wind punished him for the glimmer of hope, yet it couldn’t extinguish that flame of victory growing inside his spirit. John’s fingers dug into the dirt at the top and then he was bringing himself up to stand at the edge of an open field.

Bodies. John couldn’t count them all, but that was the first thought that struck him at the center. The sheer number of bodies strewn across the field had to number in the thousands and if he let his focus fall on them, they stretched out farther. The dreamscape multiplied them and for a second, John nearly collapsed from the weight of the enormity. 

If he hadn’t spotted Castiel sitting in the middle, he might have been lost.

John carefully wound his way through the corpses. Most at least appeared human, but some had scorched out eyes, others headless, and then there was the unsettling number with ashy wings beneath them. Enough light shone from the shooting stars overhead, that John realized half way through the field that those weren’t stars at all. Angels burned as they fell forever towards the comically bright green grass and lit John’s path towards the center. 

Staring at the heavens and walking was not John’s brightest idea. He stumbled over the arm of one corpse. At first glance, he didn’t know the woman and he would have passed over her entirely except her bright red hair caught his eye. The Angel Anna. 

Closer to Castiel, another Angelic corpse, this one of a male, laid there in a fast-food worker’s stupidly striped shirt. Several more humans outright slaughtered with their throats ripped or their eyes burned away. A copy of Dean lay among the bodies. 

John trudged on towards the Angel in the center of this massacre site. 

Castiel’s sobbing was a near silent thing for John could hear only a sniff or a low groan every once in a great while. As he approached from behind, he could see the Angel’s bare shoulders and the way they shifted when a sob wracked through him.

Worse than the sobbing was the wings on Castiel’s back. Broken off and mauled, the wings bled from the exposed bone. Dark gray feathers coated what remained and they dropped away like tears. The ones that blew away in the now-still air darkened to pitch black. Worst of all, large nails went through the base of the wing’s bones and into Castiel’s flesh. Tracks of blood ran tiny rivers down his back. 

Before Castiel lay a copy of Sam, face towards the heavens, panting heavily, wounds opening up all over his body yet he would only groan in short breathy gasps. On the other side was a blonde trench-coated man with his face half buried in the ground. Striking resemblance to John, sure he’d admit that, but John liked to believe he’d go out in a fight and not as a sobbing mess on the ground.

The bodies of fallen friends formed a circle around Castiel with a few feet of distance at the diameter. John stepped across that line and sulfur burned at his nose while a dark, gravelly voice muttered incomprehensibly. Enochian, John realized. Something he could pick at the written word, but he was too shit at the spoken. 

“Castiel,” John said. The sound barely left his lips for the air was so pressed against him. He cleared his voice and spoke again. “Castiel.”

The broken Angel stayed hunched over himself on his knees. Sobs came louder.

After taking a deep breath, John threw a bit of his will into his voice. “Castiel, hear my plea. I’m right beside you, don’t ignore me now.”

“I can’t,” Castiel cried. “I can’t look at you. This Grace would scorch your mind.”

“You’ve got more control than that, love, or I’d be dead already.”

The whispering grew louder. One distinctive voice at least, not that John could understand it. 

Castiel reached down into the grass and buried his hands in it. “You have to go.”

“If I go, we’re all dead.”

Castiel glanced over one shoulder. His eyes blazed bright blue and an electric whine screeched through the air.

John took a deep breath before holding out his hands. “A few of us mere mortals can look upon Heaven without dying. I’m not so easily burnt by your Grace.”

“It isn’t mine.”

“All the more reason I can take it.”

Slowly, Castiel turned towards him, though he remained crouched. He glanced up at John with those bright blue Grace-infused eyes. “It’s really you, not a figment. You came.”

“I did.”

Castiel frowned. “How?”

“You summoned me. Psychic accident is my best guess. I’m not the only one here either.”

Castiel closed his eyes. “Sam.” He frowned more. “My brother.” Then, with a half-sob, half-gasp, he moaned, “Dean?”

“On his brother’s heels,” John said.

“How?”

“A dream root. Sam and I took the same.”

“You know Sam and Dean?”

“Never met them until your dream,” John said. “A friend suggested the root. Just odd coincidence that we took it the same night.”

“My brother is involved, I doubt this was coincidence.”

John couldn’t outright deny that. “Heaven moves in mysterious ways.”

“Heaven moves to serve itself,” Castiel said. “It has to protect itself.”

Crouching down low so he was on Castiel’s level, John admitted, “I was trying to be polite there. You lot seem more apt to smite or condemn than to care about what happens to us mere mortals, yet stories of you run different. Castiel, the Angel who cares too much for humanity.”

“How do you know so much about me?” Castiel asked.

“The universe has ways of talking,” John said. “You just have to know how to listen.”

Tears still streamed down Castiel’s cheeks, but they seemed to run slower. John couldn’t be sure if that was some strange time dilation or if the Angel was finishing off his sobbing. 

“Time to end this nightmare,” John told him. “Make yourself wake up.”

“I can’t.” Castiel shook his head. “I’ve been trying.”

“Right then,” John said as he swallowed down the disappointment. “You and Jack were working a case ‘bout this thing?”

“Jack had a device that created a positive psychic resonance. The alien broke off of the girl, but it split into two and we only could contain the one.”

“And you contracted the second.”

Castiel nodded. For a second, the other voice with them grew louder and Castiel dug his hands into the ground more. Fresh tears fell from his eyes. “Jack’s tried the device with me, but it’s not working.”

“Probably doesn’t have an Angel setting. We’ll have to jump start the flow manually.”

That Enochian-speaking voice grew stronger and Castiel clutched his shoulders and sobbed anew. He fell towards the grass.

Instinctively, John reached out to catch the falling Angel.

He stood in Hell. This was a hallway filled with tortured souls. Start at the end of the line, move through it, reach the front only to go back to the front. Something very Greek about that. The man beside him was shorter, dark haired. Crowley. Discussion of fuel, of souls, of where to find them. Purgatory. Crowley would take half for Hell’s power and he would take the other for his war in Heaven. To fund the beginning of this endeavor, Crowley would give him fifty thousand souls. His blatant disregard for their uniqueness because he sought power warped him over time. He took risks. He sacrificed so much and lied to himself over and over and over. 

Watching Dean, but not confiding in him. Threatening him and Sam and Bobby. Watching Dean’s soul blacken with every poor decision after the Fall. Choosing to stay away from the bunker so he didn’t have to watch that struggle. Using the excuse of a new life, a new boyfriend, a new mission to stay away as long as he could so he didn’t have to watch Dean lose himself piece by piece. All so he could put him down in the end. Someone would have to and Sam wouldn’t have the courage. Nor should he have to. He had taken him out of Hell—it fell to him to put Dean back into his place. But if he stayed and watched, he’d convince himself that Dean Winchester could be saved. Nothing could take away the Mark of Cain or that burden. Dean had bargained away his soul in such a way that not even an Angel of the Lord could save him—not that he was much of one anymore anyway.

And foolish, beautiful John wanted to change that. Thought he could change that. He didn’t know that Crowley had forced another Grace down his throat in the meantime. He didn’t know that at best he was a wilting, fading Angel and at worst yet another pawn in Crowley’s machinations. John thought he could be saved. Jack believed he could be. They wanted to tempt Creation and they’d all burn for it, but he couldn’t stop them. He didn’t want to stop them. Power. Wasn’t it always about power in the end? He believed he could keep fixing his errors if only he had a little more time. Maybe if they’d let him go, if Sam and Dean and Jack and John and Hannah and Crowley could all just let him go he’d find peace. Instead he had to keep on swimming through this with heavy weights around his legs. Just let him drown.

Drown.

Dragged under by the current. He’d joked and teased and convinced the rest of the band that a night dip in the river wasn’t such a bad idea. Least this one was cleaner than the Thames, yeah? Not like they hadn’t seen each other in various states of undress before. After such a gig, a little skinny-dipping would be just the thing.

The Leviathan had left through him in a lake.

No.

No, the river. With Ritchie being too chicken to come in, standing at the shore in his white boxers. Gaz laughing and trying to splash him anyways. Judith shying her way into the waters and him grinning at her for encouragement. Anne-Marie flinging her bra towards the shoreline and missing while the boy she’d met in the bar that night laughed, Ritchie grabbing it up and flushing as he tossed it with the rest of her clothes. John foolishly proving how ‘safe’ the river was by swimming out farther than the rest of them, only he lost his footing and went down.

Down. 

Drown.

The lake swallowed him.

The river, the river, the river! The undercurrent pulled him a few feet, but the distance seemed infinite in the sudden darkness. His lungs burned hot and he opened his mouth but only water rushed in. Somehow he got turned the right way and pushed up from the river bottom. In one strong shove, John burst up and broke the water surface. He fell back against the water, face to the sky, and sucked in more sweet air.

John fell back against the grass and was only himself again. 

Inches away, his own face stared lifelessly back at him.

“Not yet,” John groaned.

“John?” Castiel’s voice had deepened. Confidence had returned. 

John propped himself back up on his elbows.

Huge black wings arched up from Castiel’s back. Dumbstruck, John watched them flit in natural movements while Castiel tried to say something.

“John!”

“That how they supposed to look?” John nodded at the wings.

A weak grin crossed Castiel’s lips. “Yes.”

“But you’re not fallen.”

“We don’t tell each other apart by just the color of our wings. Are you all right?”

“Besides nearly getting swallowed whole? I’m fine.” John closed his eyes and pushed a hand through his hair.

“John?”

“Told you, I’m fine. Any chance you can break off this dream now?”

A quiet moment passed before Castiel said, “No.”

“Damn it.”

A sedate roll of thunder went across the sky. Something twitched in the corner of John’s perception, but he saw nothing different when he turned his head.

That quiet male voice spoke in Enochian again. Even though John couldn’t make sense out of the words, he caught the smugness in the speaker’s tone. 

“I might be able to send you home,” Castiel said.

John forced himself to sit up. “No. I haven’t come this far for you to get rid of me at the last moment.”

“If you stay, you’ll die with me.”

“You’ll die without me. We still have a chance here, Castiel. Can’t believe I’m the one saying this, but you need to have some hope.”

“You obviously have no idea where hope has led him before,” the Enochian speaker suddenly said in English.

John glanced around, but saw no one. That voice had an odd familiarity to it, and not because of its dialect. The tone and pitch struck a chord in his memory. Where had he heard that voice?

He never had before, not really. That voice belonged to Crowley and he had only heard it through Castiel’s memory.

Castiel’s wings ruffled nervously. “Yes, that’s the King of Hell.”

With a wry smirk, John said, “You and I both know that’s a fiction. Abbadon may be dead, but that hardly means he’s King. Bit of a bullshit puppet show for us mortals. Real battle’s yet to come.”

Those wings flitted again and Castiel’s expression darkened. Crowley’s voice switched back to Enochian. And for the second time, John could’ve sworn something else in that field was moving. 

Castiel tilted his head. “How much do you know of the Hells and Heavens?”

“Enough to get me killed, or keep me alive, depending on the circumstance,” John joked.

“Sometimes you’re too much like Jack.”

“And sometimes you dress too much like me, but who’s caring?”

“He blocks with sarcasm,” Crowley’s disembodied voice said. “He’s scared. Send him home, Castiel. Do it now. He’s worthless to you. Do it before they rip to him to shreds.”

Castiel dug his hands into the ground.

“Before who rips me apart?” John asked.

All Castiel did was shake his head and clutch at his shoulders again.

Fine, John had other things to poke and prod at the moment. “How’d you get your wings to look like that?”

Castiel glanced over his shoulders and up at the long length of strong wing. “Vanity.”

“In other words, your self-image improved. Even if only a fragment, you felt good about yourself.”

“I can’t find more.”

The ‘King of Hell’ Crowley appeared beside Castiel. His smug smile unnerved John. “Enough chitchat,” he said.

Then he reached up, clutched several of Castiel’s feathers, and ripped them from the wing. They came away bloody and a stream of blood rained from the damaged wing. Castiel only gripped himself tighter. Broken sobs slipped from him as Crowley reached up for another handful.

“No!” John shouted. He moved to propel himself at Crowley, tackle him if he could.

When he went to spring at the demon, something caught his coat and yanked him backwards onto the field. The bloody, panting version of Sam loomed over him. His eyes were lifeless white now, but he was smiling down at John. John went to shove him away, but the broken version of himself grabbed hold of his arm. It had raised its face up from the ground and even with half its face missing, it gave that same terrifying smile. 

The other corpses were moving too. While John struggled to free himself from himself, Castiel sat in the center, wings extended, and sobbing as these things stumbled or crawled their way towards him. Anna’s red hair stuck out among them.

Crowley tore away more handfuls and threw the feathers down. Huge well-muscled Hellhounds on either side of him lapped up the scraps their master dropped to them. A copy of Dean snatched feathers away from one of the dogs and it ripped his throat out for the offense, except this copy was already dead and a missing throat only made it a bloody mess instead of stopping it. It shoved the feathers into its mouth and chomped down on them. Torn pieces of feather stuck out from the remnants of its throat.

John tried to shout, to scream, but the Sam-thing shoved a hand over his throat. Other things grabbed at him. The one that bore his face was trying to yank a finger off and John could feel the muscle and bone starting to give away to its strength.

He would die in this field.

But like Hell would he just let these things have their way with him. John thrashed, punched, and kicked at the attackers, naturally seeking even the smallest bit of leverage. Even on his back, even with these things tugging at him, John refused to give up. Never did know when he’d lost a fight. One time he and Chas had been back to back in an alley with a couple of possessed bastards coming after them. Both of them had walked away with broken bones—that lucky Chas getting to heal them while John had had to have his put in a cast—but they’d survived even with the odds against them.

He wasn’t losing this one either.

Maybe his determination helped him win out or clinging to that memory of victory in tougher times, but John swung out, struck the Sam-thing square enough in the face to send it reeling and then shoved the mimicry of himself off and away. Panting, John spun around to face Castiel again.

Crowley had ripped away enough feathers and flesh to expose a large chunk of one wing, ‘bout half way up. He took hold of the wing with both hands.

John let out a battle-cry roar and charged Crowley.

The demon vanished and reappeared at Castiel’s other wing.

Having too much momentum, John went crashing down to the ground beside the now-rotting version of Dean. It turned towards him with vacant eyes. John had no problem squarely punching that thing in the face.

More of those things had closed in by the time John regained his feet. The one in the sad worker’s uniform grabbed at him and before John could yank away, Anna had hold on him too. Ashen wings filled the air. Soot and sulfur filled the air so much that John could hardly breathe.

This was all a mental game. A con of the grandest kind—making him believe that he could die here this way. An echo of Jack’s voice whispered, “You can beat this. I know you can.”

Not meant for John, but he’d soak up the encouragement. He roared again and ripped away from the clutches of the corpses. Most of his clothes went away into their hands, but he didn’t need those. He needed the Angel to wake up.

Castiel turned enough to see John. Tears streaked his face. His lips didn’t move, yet John got the message. “I’m sorry.”

The ground was shaking hard. Bright, burning Angels crashed into the field around them while Crowley laughed and shredded Castiel’s wing.

Breaking point.

A small touch of their psyches had brought in enough positive energy to recreate the wings. Imagine what more could do, John’s mind thought. One small happy memory had been enough to give Castiel a push. More of them would have to be a shove strong enough to deliver them to safety.

Did John have that much happiness in him?

He had to, or the alien wouldn’t be trying so damn hard to keep them apart all night.

Castiel’s psyche had nearly absorbed his completely. Sheer luck had driven them apart. If John touched Castiel, went through with this half-mad plan, he’d more than likely die.

The edges of the field had more in common with an ocean’s wave than solid ground.

Death was coming, one way or another. Better to be on his terms, better that he go out with hope. 

John surged forward before those grasping fingertips could get another hold on him. He crashed to his knees before Castiel, threw his arms around his shoulders, and kissed him.


	8. Chapter 8

Music pounded through him and he rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet. The band’s sounds created a reverb through the air. Tension so fine it was an electric hum that drew John’s body rigid. The lead singer swallowed down the last of a dark drink before approaching the mike again. John raised up on his toes to get a better look—some of these bastards were too tall, but since he snuck in, he wasn’t ‘bout to complain to anyone. Besides, all that mattered was the singer taking in a deep breath, the tempo rising, and everyone surging together in a mosh pit.

They pushed against him and he careened off into the crowd. He stumbled over his feet in the sea of people and someone shoved him forward. He fell towards the floor except someone else grabbed him by his arm and his balance rocked backwards. More and more shoved and he gained his footing and shoved back. A mad, wide grin broke over his lips as he propelled back into the crowd harder.

“John!”

Chas?

He laughed as some stupid bastard drunkenly fell over at the edge of the crowd only to have some other bastard hit him square in the eye as he spun back towards the stage.

“John!”

Chas!

“Can’t you hear me?” Anne-Marie said.

Bright sunlight intensified the headache and he used the last of his cash to buy a pair of sunglasses suiting a budding young rock star/magician. He spun ‘round on the sidewalk and hunched his shoulders as Anne-Marie—her hair and clothes tamer than they had been the last time he’d seen her—stalked towards him.

“Were we supposed to be meeting up?” John said.

“I’ve been following you since the bookstore. You were walking away too fast for me to catch up.”

John shrugged.

Anne-Marie rolled her eyes. “You can’t steal from anyone you like, John. He saw you slip it in your coat.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Did he? It’s you chasing after me, not him.”

“I left him extra money to make up for it.” She smiled with that secret glee that was just a hair’s width away from perversion considering how much older she was than he—and how young he was. “Go on now, show me what you took.”

John took out the book and handed it over to her.

Anne-Marie laughed. “Well, I certainly didn’t leave enough to cover this one. I told him you were some little dabbling brat, but Leroy James’s interpretation of the Necronomicon? Why this one?”

“Saw it referenced in one of your others.”

She grinned at him. “Been in my books again?”

“You gave me a key to your place. Assumed that’s what you wanted me to do.”

“So I did.” She handed the book back over. “Where were you last night?”

“Went to a show.”

“That why you got the sunglasses on?”

John grinned at her. “Maybe, love.”

She lunged forward and stole his sunglasses. Her eyes went wide. “John.” With a gentle touch, she took hold of his chin and tilted his face back and forth. She pressed her lips together.

“One’s from the mosh pit,” he said about his nearly matching black eyes.

“But only the one.”

The street twisted and shrank into the dark, dingy living room. He sat on the floor, leaning back against the couch, watching something stupid on the telly.

His father stumbled into the room. A kind of too familiar darkness filled his eyes, so John stood up and headed off towards his bedroom.

“Where do you think you’re going, killer?” his dad slurred.

Killer.

Gaz clutched his hand tight and John gripped back equal in return. All night, Gaz had been writhing against the bed, against the bonds, and spitting foul words at John. For one guilty second, John wished he’d cut out Gary’s tongue.

Then came the worse. Gaz kept apologizing until the pain became too much for him to talk. After that, just screams and writhing.

Killer.

“Do it!” Naomi gripped the back of her chair tighter.

Bright light snapped away and Castiel stood at the side of the road with Samandriel slumped against him. He twisted his wrist and his Angel Blade dropped into his hand.

“No!” Castiel slammed both hands on the desk in that bright white room again. “I won’t.”

“Do it, now!” Naomi said.

Back on the side of the road, Samandriel raised his head. He sang a few mournful notes on the ‘Angel Radio’ before Castiel sank the dagger into his heart.

Naomi fed him the story.

He lied to Dean. Again.

Dean.

That projection of him trying to gut him.

Getting tossed from the bunker.

Feeling that insane way Dean had pressed up against his back and all that whisper of dark power. Right there. Easy to align with. Hellfire burned hotter than soul power. A little damnation could go a long way and wouldn’t be the first time John used such an option.

Fearing all along that Dean had fallen and not being able to tell Sam. Heaven’s secrets were few from the Winchesters, but some lore could not be shared. The Mark of Cain. Dean carried the Mark of Cain. If he hadn’t fallen for Metatron’s trick, Heaven could have helped contain Abbadon. Dean wouldn’t have had to do that.

That smile on Dean’s face as he turned towards him and Sam with blood dripping off the First Blade.

If Dean had let Sam finish the sealing the gates of Hell, they would have less demonic threat to deal with. The rising darkness wouldn’t be a threat for a millennia and by then Heaven could rebuild.

Rising darkness.

He was going to fail. World swallowed whole.

“John!” Chas said.

John whirled ‘round, but blackness upon blackness engulfed him. Didn’t even seem to be standing on anything. He stopped, only he hadn’t intended to stop. The spinning stopped without his say-so.

“You’re dying,” Castiel said. He was too close to be seen.

John frowned. “I’m fine.”

“I’m sorry.”

A sharp pain broke through him and he fell to the nothing blackness, somehow stopping only a few feet down as if it was solid.

Above him stood Castiel. Somehow, John’s feet were still inside Castiel’s.

Pain arced through John. He screamed.

“I’m sorry.” Castiel knelt. “I can’t save you.”

“Break free,” John said. Tears burned at his eyes, except this place wasn’t real. A projection inside his own mind. “Please.”

“I tried.”

“I’ll die if you don’t!”

“I warned you.”

John gasped and rode through another wave of pain.

“We have to get him to a hospital,” Zed said. Just a voice in the darkness.

“There’s no way to get him to one in time to matter,” Chas said.

“Then there has to be something here.”

“Bad idea. We don’t know what’s lying around.”

“We can’t stand by and do nothing!” Zed said.

Castiel tilted his head and frowned. “They’re trying to save you.”

“You can hear that?” John said.

Castiel nodded.

“Do you know what’s happening to my body?”

“You have been seizing for two minutes. The Grace is burning your brain.”

Even though it was all black on black, John could feel Angel feathers dropping off Castiel’s proud wings again.

“Show me Heaven!”

“What?”

“If I’m going to burn off into oblivion, you could do me the favor,” John said. “Don’t young Angels get to frolic through Heaven?”

“The Heavens don’t exist like Earth. You wouldn’t understand the forms.”

“We’re in each other’s psyches.”

“I’ve been holding back. You’d be dead already if I hadn’t.”

John gasped and arched as blinding pain spiked through him another time. He clawed out at the ground, but his fingertips found nothing to hold onto. No comfort. Only agony. “You have to give me something! You owe me that much!”

Castiel smirked. “That’s the John Constantine I’ve heard stories about.”

Before John could complain at him, Castiel reached out his hand. John grasped it.

They stood atop a cliff. Salty air dampened John’s tongue and the stars overhead only had the regular meteors playing among them. Not far away, a young couple stretched out on a blanket with arms linked, pointing up at the sky and whispering to each other. Small bits of laughter echoed through the air.

“Where are we?” John asked. He was solid and whole again. A small whine burned at his ears, so he tugged at one while he looked over to Castiel.

Castiel who had those large, beautiful wings reaching every upwards. He wore the suit that too closely resembled John’s for mere coincidence. “Heaven.”

“Heaven? What about the choirs of Angels? Playing around on clouds?”

“Heaven isn’t like that,” Castiel said. “There are layers to it. This is the part where mortals have their Heavens. Actually, this is just my mental recreation of it. A conglomeration of what a specific realm would be like.”

“Two people lying under the stars?”

“Two bound souls lounging together during a pastime that thrilled them the better part of their lives. They need only each other, their love, and the stars. Is there something greater than that?”

John shoved his hands in his pockets and watched for a few seconds. That whine was getting louder. “Seems a bit boring.”

Castiel chuckled. “That’s why warrior cultures had places where the spirits of their deceased could keep fighting.”

“Well, in my Heaven—” John gave a grim, tight-lipped smile. “Never mind that.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault, love. If I wasn’t getting obliterated, I’d be going straight to Hell.”

The seas below crashed against the stiff cliff face. A nice enough sound if that noise in his own consciousness would shut up. John winced.

“Show me yours,” John said.

“What?” Castiel said.

“Show me your Heaven.”

“I’m heading for obliteration too.”

John shrugged. “Okay then. Let me see what you would want your Heaven to look like if you got one.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“Dying man’s wish. You going to deny me that?”

“I may not be capable.”

“Bullshit,” John said. “You’re using up the last of my psychic energy. Make it worthwhile.”

Castiel broke their eye contact first and took in a deep breath. “Fine.”

He closed his eyes.

And the world around them altered.


	9. Chapter 9

Like a light switch, sunlight brightness took over the starry sky. The grass returned to a comic brightness and the sky was a perfect summer blue. The field went on for as far as John could see. Endless miles of calm, cheery beauty. 

Lonely, though. No one around except for John and Castiel. John held a hand to his head and ignored the whine burning through his mind. He said, “Where’s all the people?”

Castiel tucked his black wings away. “Solitude might be best for me.”

“What about the ones who love you?”

“I’ve let them down too many times for them to care.”

“Considering the way Sam fought for you, I seriously doubt that.”

Castiel only stared at the horizon.

John shivered. He didn’t have long left and his last chance was burning faster than a match. “Fine. This place is supposed to be yours. Doesn’t matter what they think, yeah? What matters is how you feel about them. So, show us who you love.”

“We’re still connected. I know what you’re trying to do,” Castiel said. “I’ve slowed time as much as I can for us, but you’re still dying.”

“Doesn’t mean I’m going to give up.” John gasped through the pain. “Can’t afford to.”

“I’ve always admired that about humans.”

“You were human for a while,” John said. The bonus of having that connection between them, bits of Castiel’s memory slipped through to his consciousness. “Wasn’t all pain for you.”

“John, this won’t work.”

“Because you won’t let it!” John snapped. The shivering kept going beyond his control. Not too long until the pain became the only thing left of him. And the last thing that he’d ever know was a stubborn Angel standing in an empty field while he shattered into pieces from the pain? Somehow too fitting and too sad all in the same twisted moment. “That thing has burrowed too thick in your head, Castiel. It’s hiding in the anger, the guilt, the humiliation. Stop letting it have this power. You are stronger than this.”

Castiel squinted at him. “Strip everything away from you and you’re an optimist.”

“And you’re a bloody Angel of the Lord!” John fell to his knees. “Do something!”

Laughter filled the air as other Angels began appearing in the field around them. Air ruffled when their wings moved and those wings were every shade in the rainbow and a few invented. Looking too hard at them turned them into huge, shining light and the laughter changed to notes of music. 

“That’s as close as you can see them,” Castiel said. 

“I’m going out anyway,” John said. “Getting to see a true Grace wouldn’t be so bad at this point.”

“But this isn’t all I love.”

And with that, humans populated the space in between the Angels. They were happy, warm, and safe too. John gripped onto the grass, but that impression stuck with him. Safe mattered to Castiel more than happiness. 

A much younger Dean was sprawled out on the grass by himself. He had undisturbed sleep. 

Sam was caught up in conversation with his mother Mary and Kevin and Kevin’s mother, Linda. Bobby and Kevin’s father joined them. 

More and more people. John knew their names only because of the connection to Castiel, but it seemed that Castiel had fallen in love with just about every human he had ever met. Even Zed and Chas—Chas enjoying a nap too and Zed appearing next to Sam in animate conversation—had a place there.

Not too far from where John hung on for his shreds of life, Jack sprang to life. Meg, beautiful despite the demonic nature of her soul, sat cross-legged beside him with a smug smile on her face. They were teasing each other. 

 

And last, John saw himself.

The look-a-like was smiling, laughing. He stretched out in the sun beside Jack with his arms propping up his head. Carefree and happy and engaged in conversation, he remained oblivious to the real John’s struggle.

In the end, he was loved. John was still hardwired into the Angel’s consciousness. Castiel didn’t see him as a tool, didn’t think of him as beyond saving. To Castiel, he was a damned man clawing his way out the best he could and he was beautiful for it. There was a small spark of hope and love underneath the mental shields and layers of self-disgust. Castiel wished John had had more time to win back that fire and lust for life.

Castiel had hope for him. Wanted to remember him like the vision beside Jack.

“Not bad,” John said. “Hold onto that, yeah?”

Unfortunately John wouldn’t get to hang on to anything. His memories would burn away into nothing. Even the one of kissing Castiel in the motel parking lot. Was that when he felt the first chance of something for the Angel? Or had it been while watching him cuddle up to Jack in the dark? Either way, if John had had a chance at Heaven, he’d want Jack and Castiel there among his friends. 

“I won’t need to.”

John frowned. His whole body went numb. At least the shaking stopped, though he wasn’t liking this cold sweeping over him.

Castiel ducked down beside him, suddenly their faces close. “I don’t feel it anymore.”

“Feel what?”

“Later. John. Wake up.”

“Huh?” he mumbled.

“Wake up!”

John sputtered. Coughed. Gasped. Air hurt his lungs with each sweet intake. Lungs? He was breathing. John clutched onto something, a hand. A firm hand. He rolled onto his back and met the wood floor with a harsh push. 

That hand was squeezing his awful tight. Chas.

His eyes had been open for about a minute before the world slid back into focus. He groaned as he looked between Chas and Zed’s worried faces. “What’s got you two so worked up?”

Zed laughed. Tears were in her eyes. 

Chas broke out a wide smile too. 

John raised his head. “Why’re my pants undone?”

“Seizure,” Chas said.

John patted his tie and found it far looser than usual, too. “Right. Protocols.”

“What happened?” Zed asked.

Her eyes were so big, so wide. So hopeful. 

Chas was already sealed off, expecting the denial or the lie.

“Let me get cleaned up. And food. I’ll tell you what I can over dinner. We’ll even go out somewhere nice.”

Zed narrowed her gaze.

John struggled to sit up. “Some of these secrets aren’t mine to spill, love. That’s all I mean.”

Both of his friends were shocked. So was he. “Blame the Angel. Think I’m going to be a bit kind and honest for a while.”

“That may be the scariest thing I’ve heard you say,” Chas replied.

John laughed.

************* 

Glorious heat and water. After a few minutes in reality, stiffness and soreness had made an appearance. The shower eased those off. John decided a few more minutes would hurt no one.

Chas pounded on the door. 

John turned the shower off. “What?”

Chas stuck his head inside the bathroom. “Some guy called me. Sam Winchester?”

“’Bout the Mark,” John said. “Eager of him.” He tilted his head. “Give the phone to Zed. Have him explain the details to her.”

Chas frowned. “You sure?”

“I know enough to work on it. Something tells me it’d be good for both of them.”

“All right then.”

************* 

Dinner was had at the nearest nice pub John had discovered back when Jasper was still kicking around and talking to him. The three of them took a booth towards the back. Over beers and burgers, John told the nightmare tale.

He left out parts, he had to. Seeing Gaz and Zed in the swamp, seeing Lucifer in Sam’s mind, Manny making an appearance in an effort to save his brother, the twisted way the violence had turned Dean on—some of those bits weren’t important to the telling and some others were too terrifying to tell them about. 

But there was plenty to tell them about, too. Bobby Singer—who, now that John had a chance to think and remember, had been a friend of Jasper’s—and the Angel Anna, and the struggle with the Winchesters to find Castiel through the mess. And of course, of Heaven.

Zed was awestruck when he mentioned Heaven. She had that finding-out-Santa-is-REAL expression that usually made John sneer at her, but not tonight. He wondered if Castiel felt that calm peace when someone else had faith confirmed in the Almighty. This certainly wasn’t his natural reaction.

They were contemplating the whole tale when Castiel and Jack Harkness walked through the door. The two men came over to the table. For once, Castiel was without his tan trench coat. He fixed his gaze on John. “Can we talk? Outside?”

“Yeah.” John slid out and followed the Angel.

They’d been outside a second when Castiel dug into his suit pocket for a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. He lit up with a familiar, practiced ease before offering the pack to John.

John took one. “Didn’t think you were a smoker.”

“I’m not,” Castiel said. He blew smoke out. “I think we blended onto each other.”

John lit the cigarette.

“How are you feeling?”

“Little worn out,” John said. “Calm. Can’t even get worked up about not feeling worked up sort of calm. And blunt.”

“You usually are blunt.”

“But in the rude way.” John glanced through the window. Jack had sat down next to Zed and across from Chas. “Haven’t been mean since I woke up.”

“A true sign of the Apocalypse,” Castiel joked.

John smirked. “See, there it is. Give it back.”

Castiel laughed. “I’m sure we’ll sift back into our natural order with enough time.”

“You’re not wearing the trench coat.”

Castiel waved the hand with the cigarette. “I already feel too much like you.”

A long quiet moment in the Atlanta night passed between them. That steady place in his mind was new and might not last, but John felt more relaxed than he had in ages. Still, he hadn’t expected to feel anything by this point. He leaned back against the building. “What happened? At the end.”

“We broke its hold.” 

John took a long drag off his cigarette. “By you conjuring up the loved ones.”

“By you accepting that you deserved love.”

“The alien was in your head.”

“And you were part of my consciousness,” Castiel said. “We created a positive feedback loop.”

“You were well in past my mental defenses. You felt what I felt, so when I had a spark, you latched on. Love saves the day.” The bite and sarcasm were out of his words for once. Fear crept in at leaving that thought out in the open. After all, did he love an Angel? Or was that a moment of panic?

Castiel leaned in and stole a gentle kiss. “Thank you.”

Ah, so there was no more of talking out loud about it. Good. John let out a breath before grabbed Castiel’s suit coat and dragging him in for a longer exploration. They’d climbed inside each other’s heads, a few physical moments seemed in order.

They broke off in the same instance. “Too easy to predict you,” John said.

“Same.”

John glanced at the window. “We could mess with them. You being more like me and me being more like you.”

“This amount of glee at the suggestion, this is your fault,” Castiel said.

“Or Jack’s influence. Do you think he’d pass this up?”

“I know what else he wouldn’t want to pass on right now.”

“Ah, us in bed together? Not sure if it counts since he normally wants us.”

Castiel took a turn looking into the window. “He went through much the last week as well.”

“Maybe we should reward him, then. There’s this thing we could—”

“I think he’d like that,” Castiel said.

John laughed. “Guess I upped your sexual knowledge.”

“Not exactly. Metatron forced a lot of popular culture into my head, some of which was pornographic in nature. But now I have more emotional context for most of them.”

“You remember distinct memories of mine?” John snorted. “Not fair. Yours are already slipping away.”

“A defensive mechanism of the human mind. I’m sure if you dug around, you’d find them.”

“And probably induce a seizure. I’ll leave them to my subconscious.” John finished off the cigarette. “We should get back in.”

They went back to the table. John slid into the booth beside Chas. Castiel stole a chair from the nearest table, turned it around, and straddled it. That earned him an astonished look from Jack.

John smiled. The rest of this night was going to be fun.


End file.
